Now published: our retrospective on why
#DigitalContactTracing didn’t live up to hopes for
#COVID, and how we could make it both transformational and safe next
#pandemic https://publichealth.jmir.org/2023/1/e49560. Lessons-to-be-learned thread.
#ExposureNotification #privacy #epidemiology #RiskAnalysis #TraceTogether @agebhard @Jasonbay 1/8
Combatting SARS-CoV-2 With Digital Contact Tracing and Notification: Navigating Six Points of Failure
Digital contact tracing and notification were initially hailed as promising strategies to combat SARS-CoV-2; however, in most jurisdictions, they did not live up to their promise. To avert a given transmission event, both parties must have adopted the technology, it must detect the contact, the primary case must be promptly diagnosed, notifications must be triggered, and the secondary case must change their behavior to avoid the focal tertiary transmission event. If we approximate these as independent events, achieving a 26% reduction in the effective reproduction number Rt would require an 80% success rate at each of these 6 points of failure. Here, we review the 6 failure rates experienced by a variety of digital contact tracing and contact notification schemes, including Singapore’s TraceTogether, India’s Aarogya Setu, and leading implementations of the Google Apple Exposure Notification system. This leads to a number of recommendations, for example, that the narrative be framed in terms of user autonomy rather than user privacy, and that tracing/notification apps be multifunctional and integrated with testing, manual contact tracing, and the gathering of critical scientific data.
Our retrospective on what went wrong with
#DigitalContactTracing including
#ExposureNotification is now also up at
https://preprints.jmir.org/preprint/49560, where there is an Open Peer Review process until June 15.
Digital contact tracing/notification for SARS-CoV-2: a retrospective of what went wrong
Journal of Medical Internet Research - International Scientific Journal for Medical Research, Information and Communication on the Internet
Our Perspective
#preprint on
#DigitalContactTracing for
#COVID, with diverse coauthors. An 80% success rate is needed at each of 6 points of failure to reduce R(t) by 26%. Singapore is the only country that got close this time, but the tech could be both transformational and safe next
#pandemic – if we ignore prevailing self-serving narratives and instead heed the lessons-to-be-learned.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.00873 1/4
Digital contact tracing/notification for SARS-CoV-2: a retrospective of what went wrong
Digital contact tracing/notification was initially hailed as a promising
strategy to combat SARS-CoV-2, but in most jurisdictions it did not live up to
its promise. To avert a given transmission event, both parties must have
adopted the tech, it must detect the contact, the primary case must be promptly
diagnosed, notifications must be triggered, and the secondary case must change
their behavior to avoid the focal tertiary transmission event. Achieving a 26%
reduction in R(t) requires 80% success rates at each of these six points of
failure. Here we review the six failure rates experienced by a variety of
digital contact tracing/notification schemes, including Singapore's
TraceTogether, India's Aarogya Setu, and leading implementations of the Google
Apple Exposure Notification system. This leads to a number of recommendations,
e.g. that tracing/notification apps be multi-functional and integrated with
testing, manual contact tracing, and the gathering of critical scientific data,
and that the narrative be framed in terms of user autonomy rather than user
privacy.
Joanna Masel