New York Times: Contact Tracing, Key to Reining In the Virus, Falls Flat in the West
“As the coronavirus stampeded across Europe and the United States this spring, governments made their depleted citizens a tantalizing promise: Soon, legions of disease detectives would hunt down anyone exposed to the virus, confining them to their homes and letting everyone else get on with their lives. Nearly eight months on, as a web of new infections spreads across Europe and the United States, that promise has nearly evaporated. … Beholden to privacy rules, Western officials largely trusted people to hand over names to contact tracers. But that trust was not repaid, in large part because governments neglected services that were crucial to winning people’s cooperation: a fast and accurate testing system, and guarantees that people would be housed, fed, and paid while they isolated…” (Mueller et al., 10/3).