A contact tracing system and a virus with n days of non-symptomatic incubation, and international borders. Let's think this through a bit. Of what benefit is to the traveler admitting/host country (H) to note on the "medical passport" issued by origin country (O)? Obviously, for this thing to even work on paper, countries need to exchange massive amount of information.
The fact stands [challenge it!] that the socio-political regime being rolled out in guise of defense against Covid-19 and future viral friends aligns perfectly with a specific ideological position. It really was 'Nature's gift'.
What used to be accomplished via violent revolution is being accomplished with 'scientific' efficiency and very little blood. Oh, that figurative blood in the streets of middle and lower classes? "The Virus does not discriminate!".
I'm not sure about the hand me down binary model conclusion. We're in agreement regarding the inevitability of this turn of events, but then again it was apparently clear as day thousands of years ago to "self isolating" monks.
But the clarity of the choice is stark, and like a blast of cold air invigorates one's morals and character.
Good luck!
In a way I think this will actually hamper their efforts.
After all: With the corona tracing apps, people are becoming much more aware that their data is used to trace them. A lot of people I know are talking about leaving their phones at home when they go out.
Considering the carriers have had this data forever and are probably sharing it, this awareness is a good thing for privacy.
I've worked at a telco where we were analysing customer's behaviours and almost everyone follows a pattern at some point e.g. going from home, via public transport to work. The resolution isn't high but over time you build up enough samples to accurately determine exactly where they live, work etc.
If we do end up implementing a centralized contact tracing system, the results will be very interesting. I would love to know the name and location of every lobbyist that my elected representatives have met with, and I'm sure that in the name of public health they won't make any efforts to thwart this tracking.
In that case the governments do not need this silly contact tracing app. They can just use the data they already have.
We were required to sell the data to the government on demand due to CALEA and similar legislation.
Those who complain endlessly about AANG largely seem to have no idea of how our communications networks actually work. Your location, activities, banking, etc. are not private, will never be private, have never been private, and it has nothing to do with AANG. The 3 AANG that I have worked are woolly lambs. That F guy is a bit suspicious, but I don't have first hand knowledge.
You need to have enough people for that, you need to have the testing capacity and you need to have people following that order.
It will work well if you have very low community spread and can start tracing on cluster level. If you are not there it can still be a good tool but you would probably still need a lot of other restrictions as well.
For a start, installation of the app is voluntary so if you're planning something you really don't want the government to discover, you wouldn't install it.
Also, intelligence services already get call metadata so they know which mobile towers you are using and probably lots else.
As for effectiveness, I think it will be useful. There have been several papers crunching the numbers and it looks like it will have an effect. It doesn't need to be perfect - any non-trivial reduction in R is helpful.
I don't even think it will even be effective given the anticipated number of cases.