A Call to Action for Private Sector Leaders in the Fight Against COVID-19

On October 7, 2020, the COVID-19 Technology Task Force, chaired by Ron Conway, John Borthwick, Andrew McLaughlin and Kameka Dempsey, hosted a member briefing to discuss how the private sector can help stop the spread of COVID-19 with the launch of exposure notification apps in four U.S. states.

TLDR — Here’s what private sector leaders can do now -

1. Inform employees — Spread the message that exposure notifications are available now in NY, NJ, DE and PA by simply downloading the app. Apps are also available in these states and territories: Alabama, Guam, Nevada, North Dakota and Wyoming (note that North Dakota and Wyoming share the same app), North Carolina, and Virginia. Company-wide meetings, email, voicemail and internal apps and intranets are all great ways to share the information within your organization.
2. Display signage/stickers — Use this asset generator (or create your own) to encourage adoption by employees, customers and passersby in your storefronts, restaurants, kiosks or other places of business.
3. Add to customer-facing external user apps & websites — Incorporate the assets you create into your user-facing apps and websites to encourage your users and customers to download these apps. Wherever you typically place a referral code or message alert is great.

Exposure Notification System Explained

The one-hour briefing included an overview of Google/Apple exposure notification (GAEN) technology, what strategies are needed to fight this pandemic from a public health perspective and what private sector leaders can do to help drive adoption of this technology. The event started with a brief explanation of the exposure notification system and the challenge technologists are addressing with exposure notification (EN) technology. Public health experts have for centuries relied on contact tracing to fight pandemics in the past, but with the rapid spread of COVID-19, traditional contact tracing is difficult to quickly scale. The challenge is three-fold: 1) it’s human intensive — you need a lot of people to be skilled up on the technique of contact tracing, 2) it’s slow — it takes time to reach people, interview them and take action with the information, particularly in an age where many people do not answer the phone for unidentified callers, and 3) it’s incomplete — people have imperfect memories and won’t remember everywhere they have been the day prior let alone a 14-day window of time, and they certainly won’t recall interactions with strangers. This is why a digital technology solution is so helpful. Exposure notification helps identify potential high-risk exposures that manual contact tracing would not be able to reach. A study by Oxford University showed that the combined impact of both traditional contact tracing and digital exposure notification were greater at slowing the transmission than either would be independently.

What’s Required for a Pandemic Response

The fight to slow the COVID-19 pandemic does not solely rely on contact tracing. We heard from Harvard University’s Dr. Margaret Bourdeaux, Research Director, Program in Global Public Policy and Social Change & Co-chair, Berkman Klein Center, Policy Practice: Digital Pandemic Response, about the three major components for an effective public health response to slowing the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.

Dr. Bourdeaux shared that for any communicable disease, three major areas must be addressed simultaneously: 1) environmental modifications, 2) population-based interventions, 3) contact tracing, which is composed of four key steps, which all need to be executed well for contact tracing to be effective. Environmental modifications are things like improving ventilation and providing better air filtration in spaces like airplanes, restaurants, offices and other indoor spaces. Population-based interventions are those which public health authorities ask everyone to undertake. In the instance of the COVID-19 pandemic, these are behaviors like wearing a mask, increased hand-washing and social-distancing.

Contact tracing, according to Dr. Bourdeaux, is a public health strategy that when executed in a pandemic response is effective in every situation, and the COVID-19 pandemic is no exception. She further explained that contact tracing is a specific technique used to delineate chains of transmission of the disease, comprising four steps that all need to be done. The first is identifying who is infected (testing). Second, is contact location (tracing) — identifying who is infected and who has been exposed to those that are infected. This second step is where the exposure notification apps on smart phones fits into the overall contact tracing approach. The third step is quarantining those who have been exposed, in the case of COVID-19, it is for a 14-day period. The fourth, and last step, is isolation for those that have contracted the disease. Isolation is different from quarantine because there is the addition of needing to monitor the individual for severity of the illness. Dr. Bourdeaux was clear that we all need to be excellent at all four parts of contact tracing; but we have an opportunity as private sector leaders to be excellent in our part of digital contact tracing by encouraging the adoption of exposure notification technology.

Private Sector Call to Action

Kathryn Wylde, CEO of the Partnership for NYC, stated that it is imperative to have an app like this for businesses to restore public comfort and reignite the value proposition in cities and states, but especially in urban areas like NYC. She shared that resistance to this technology is likely linked to people feeling internet and webinar weary these days and that people don’t want an app forced on them. However, employers need to drive home that employees won’t come back to work with confidence without adoption of exposure notification technology. Exposure notification is an essential part of trying to resume normal activities and not continue devastating economic and employment losses with a return to previous lockdowns. This is particularly important when there’s an increase in cases and COVID-19 hotspots in NYC, and as more schools and businesses reopen.

Ron Conway echoed Kathryn’s sentiment. He focused on two large constituencies, employers and retailers. Employers would want as close to 100% adoption as possible to create a sense of safety and confidence as they have employees returning to their workplaces, he said. In addition, retailers can encourage customers to get on board with exposure notification apps as foot traffic increases in cities like New York. John Borthwick added that the COVID-19 fight isn’t over and that where there’s been as little as 15–20% adoption in other countries, the data shows that exposure notification is saving lives. Participating is easy to do because it’s already on your phone.

If you would like more information on GAEN exposure notification, the COVID-19 Tech Kit or the COVID-19 Technology Task force, email us for more information or a link to view the briefing.

Kameka M. Dempsey is member of the COVID-19 Technology Task Force and Betaworks Studios. She is an Executive Coach, Speaker and Consultant. She advises C-level Executives and diverse leaders in Fortune 500 firms and startups. Her clients include major financial services firms, tech firms, media companies and more. She has spoken on topics of leadership and unconscious bias at a variety of industry specific events and major universities like Yale, Harvard and NYU. She lives between Manhattan and rural North Carolina. You can find her on Twitter at @KDLSsays