Covid-19: An Information Crisis
Infectious Disease experts have unanimously suggested that the current pandemic will remain with us for a reasonably long time. While it may be argued that we are dealing with a global health crisis, sufficient evidence suggests it is as much an information crisis.
In a recent interview on Global Public Square, Eric Schmidt the former CEO of Google, described the current pandemic as an information problem. This declaration is validated by the successful containment of the disease in places where it’s been understood and managed as such.
Admittedly, this concept does not exist in isolation but forms part of a larger conversation on resolving the crisis. In Scotland for instance, a 4-pronged strategy was proposed to manage the situation: Test, Trace, Isolate, and Support which for the most part has proven effective by a downtrend in the Covid-19 Activity Graph recently. The Trace component alludes to prioritizing innovative information sharing.
Another country with similar success story is South Korea. There, when an individual tests positive for the infection, they are digitally flagged as contagious, then their phones are used to collect information on where they’ve visited and who they’ve been in contact with. In the former case, the data is then presumably mapped on to a central geotracking database to find other people who may have been in the location at the same time as this individual. This eases the burden of identifying these (exposed) people for subsequent testing and possible isolation.
On a legislative note, securing public trust as key stakeholders, erodes the argument that this approach (i.e. extracting data from people’s phones) is draconian and an infringement on privacy statutes. Hence the importance of educating the public on the collective benefit of such move i.e. taking into account the comparable transmissibility of asymptomatic and symptomatic cases.
Furthermore, imagine a scenario where an infected but asymptomatic person goes to his/her home or workplace or visits an aged family member or hangs out with friends and inadvertently infects others who succumb to the disease and eventually lose their lives. Examining the situation might reveal that this asymptomatic person was infected while in a shop/car at the same time as a person that later tested positive for the virus without subsequent effective digital contact-tracing and follow up testing. The newly infected but asymptomatic person then went on to wreak havoc albeit innocently.
In conclusion, the current pandemic requires innovative and sustainable measures which are minimally disruptive of the routine, for successful containment. Thus, an information-based approach to limit its spread through effective digitally enabled contact tracing techniques is highly recommended to governments (especially those of Submerging/Frontier markets where lockdowns have the most severe economic impact on the populace).
Thank you for reading.
