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Bluetooth Low Energy is unsuitable for COVID-19 contact tracing, say inventors
cdev:
The risk of catching the virus is very low outdoors.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/15/us/coronavirus-what-to-do-outside.html
Its thousands of times higher indoors.
But GPS does not work indoors and Bluetooth both doesnt work for determining location or distance, and its a security + privacy nightmare. Also old hardware wont be upgraded so those problems are baked in.
Zero999:
--- Quote from: cdev on May 18, 2020, 12:52:07 am ---The risk of catching the virus is very low outdoors.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/15/us/coronavirus-what-to-do-outside.html
Its thousands of times higher indoors.
But GPS does not work indoors and Bluetooth both doesnt work for determining location or distance, and its a security + privacy nightmare. Also old hardware wont be upgraded so those problems are baked in.
--- End quote ---
Yes it's true the risk of catching the virus outdoors is low and is why many countries have loosened the rules governing outdoor activity such as allowing fishing and golf clubs to open, providing certain conditions are met.
GPS doesn't have to work indoors to be effective. Knowing that an infected person visited a certain premises or took a bus, within the last 7 days is all that's needed most of the time. It's true it's not effective in underground situations such as the Tube, but there are plenty of other instances when it will work, such as catching a bus or walking from the car, across the car park to a supermarket.
Bluetooth doesn't have to accurately determine distance. The user just needs to know it's likely they've been in the vicinity of an infected person, so should self-isolate and preferably get tested. As long as the virus is at a manageable level, it won't even matter that much if it generates a relatively large number of false positives, there will still far fewer people stuck at home, than there would be in a lockdown. It doesn't matter if not everyone uses it, as long as on average, it prevents one person infecting someone else.
We're not epidemiologists and I doubt the developers are either, so we can't form reliable opinions on how well or not it will work in real life. It's definitely worth a try. Any intervention in disease control has costs and risks, which is why extensive in-field testing is required to determine whether they're worth the benefits.
cdev:
Where its accurate, the risk of infection is almost zero.
Where its inaccuate, or unavailable, the risk of infection is high. That doesn't make sense to me, does it to you?
julianhigginson:
well, here's the biggest argument against the app in Australia that I've seen so far.
I'm keeping it on my phone for now, but not sure how much longer if they can't manage to integrate the data with the rest of the contact tracing system they have...
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/may/19/nsw-and-victoria-are-unable-to-use-covidsafe-apps-data-for-contact-tracing
SilverSolder:
--- Quote from: julianhigginson on May 19, 2020, 07:47:35 am ---well, here's the biggest argument against the app in Australia that I've seen so far.
I'm keeping it on my phone for now, but not sure how much longer if they can't manage to integrate the data with the rest of the contact tracing system they have...
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/may/19/nsw-and-victoria-are-unable-to-use-covidsafe-apps-data-for-contact-tracing
--- End quote ---
"Digital Transformation Agency" LOL
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