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0 pointspintxo6y ago0 comments

It's a question of alternatives, isn't it?

Operation Overlord was nothing any sane person would attempt if there was a viable alternative.

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3 comments · 1 top-level

antpls6y ago· 2 in thread

True, and there are plenty of alternatives : improving medicine, improving vaccines, improving viri and molecules detection, early isolation of ederly, improving healthcare, ... None of those axes requires to give up our privacy.

People pushing the "we must do that or millions will die of this deadly virus" have been proved wrong so far

pintxoOP6y ago

Contact tracing is not about saving lives. It’s about saving the economy without killing people.

As you say, we have other measures to save lives, but it seems they are rather deadly on the economy, and human (social) life as we know (and like?) it.

jfoster6y ago

Which of those things do you think are both feasible and able to turn around the virus in the required timeframe?

Improving medicine: decades?

Improving vaccines: 12 ~ 18mo

Improving detection: ???

Isolation of elderly: presumably already in place (are you suggesting something more?)

Improving healthcare: ??? (anything specific?)

I don't think any of these are going to make much of a difference to this pandemic. The vaccines eventually, perhaps. The things that have been shown to work well are NPIs (non-pharmaceutical interventions) such as: contact tracing, testing, mask usage, social distancing. The system that Apple/Google will put in place is essentially automated contact tracing. It will be much faster and have more data than manual contact tracing.

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