Thursday, 28 March, 2024
HomeCoronavirus WatchGermany may use smartphone tracking to isolate COVID-19 patients

Germany may use smartphone tracking to isolate COVID-19 patients

Germany has proposed using big data and location tracking to isolate people with coronavirus to keep the pandemic under control once social distancing measures now in force have slowed its spread. Reuters Health reports that the Interior Ministry’s strategy paper recommends following South Korea in aggressively testing for COVID-19 and using smartphone location data to help trace people who have come into contact with those infected with the flu-like disease.

These measures would be critical to prevent renewed flare-ups once measures now in force – such as school closures and restrictions on movement – a succeed in slowing coronavirus. Governments across Europe are turning to technology to track the coronavirus, an approach that seeks to learn from Asia but is also putting the region’s privacy rules to the test.

The report says government surveillance is a sensitive topic in Germany, where memories of the dreaded East German Stasi secret police and its extensive network of informants are still fresh in the minds of many. Germany has some of the toughest privacy laws in the world due to its experience with state surveillance systems once used by the Nazis and the Stasi.

The German study looked at one scenario in which testing would be ramped up in the coming weeks, with mobile test stations and strict isolation of those infected. “To make testing faster and more efficient,” Spiegel quoted the paper as reading, “the use of big data and location tracking is unavoidable in the long term.”

If the model is followed, scientists who worked on the study calculated that around 1m people in Germany would be infected, but only 12,000 would die. The strict procedure would have to be maintained for two months, it was reported. However, since only a small portion of the population would be immunised against the virus after that time, “a continuously high level of vigilance would have to be maintained”, according to the report.

A worst-case scenario in the study looked at what would happen if Germany took little action: some 70% of the population would soon be infected, more than 80% of would-be intensive care patients would have to be turned away from hospitals, and the death toll would exceed 1m.

Germany has extended a lockdown by banning public meetings of more than two people unless they live in the same household.

[link url="https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-germany/germany-looks-at-tracking-patients-to-suppress-coronavirus-reports-idUKKBN21E17Y"]Full Reuters Health report[/link]

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