Re:Google promised its contact tracing app was completely pr...
by jfoster on Tuesday April 27, 2021 @10:20AM
(#26956207)
Are you sure? My take on why mass market contact tracing didn't pan out was that it was insufficiently implemented/used. If it were on every phone and on by default, perhaps even mandated, would it still not have worked? I know that many people take significant issue with that approach, but it would have made more of a difference, right?
Re:Google promised its contact tracing app was completely pr...
by teachingassist on Tuesday April 27, 2021 @10:34AM
(#26956421)
There are a number of prerequisites, for this to work, that were not mandated in the US and Europe.
If someone is informed of a potential or likely infection, but then typically [chooses to/is able to] go about their day the same as usual, then what's the point of tracing them?
Initial modelling that showed contact tracing to potentially work assumed: 80% uptake, over 70s to be isolated in any case, and people to strictly follow isolation rules, none of which was considered politically possible in the West: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52294896
Re:Google promised its contact tracing app was completely pr...
by robrenaud on Tuesday April 27, 2021 @03:08PM
(#26960090)
Adoption was by far the biggest problem. If Apple/Google just shipped it in the OS and made it opt out, I bet it would have had a significant impact. Not like turning the US into Australia, but even a 10% reduction in covid cases worldwide could have saved 300k lives.
Re:Google promised its contact tracing app was completely pr...
by jfoster on Tuesday April 27, 2021 @11:52AM
(#26957603)
Yeah, a lot of it might not be politically or culturally possible. As far as I can tell, it was always technically possible to have very good automated contact tracing, though.
Re:Google promised its contact tracing app was completely pr...
by lofi_lory on Tuesday April 27, 2021 @03:31PM
(#26960387)
I think in Germany it fails, because reporting positive tests fails. Nobody doubts, if the app was promoted and reporting working flawlessly, it would hugely contribute to managing the spread.
It works great when you have just a few cases and are highly motivated to stop them from spreading (Asia/Oceania)
and it doesn't work at all, when you have a lot of cases and have no interest in doing what's necessary to contain them (Americas/Europe)
Mass-market contact tracing, in hindsight, was completely pointless. I'm not personally aware of anyone who has been informed accurately of potential infection via a Bluetooth app.