{"id":57,"date":"2020-05-16T09:03:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-16T08:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drbannonsblog.aprendo.co.uk\/drbannonsblog_wp\/2020\/05\/16\/testing-and-tracing-or-big-brother-society-a-test-case\/"},"modified":"2021-03-25T08:42:59","modified_gmt":"2021-03-25T08:42:59","slug":"testing-and-tracing-or-big-brother-society-a-test-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drbannonsblog.aprendo.co.uk\/drbannonsblog_wp\/2020\/05\/16\/testing-and-tracing-or-big-brother-society-a-test-case\/","title":{"rendered":"Testing and tracing or big brother society? A test case."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\">A recent post of mine&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\">looking at post lockdown testing and tracing in S Korea&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\">needs a mini-update. At the time I noted that:&nbsp;<\/span><br \/><i style=\"font-family: calibri, sans-serif;\"><br \/><\/i><i style=\"font-family: calibri, sans-serif;\">&#8220;South Korea allowed nightclubs to open resulting in the infection of 50 people from a single infected person. That was in just one club and that was just one clubber! Their testers and tracers will be busy too.&#8221; <\/i><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\">&nbsp;<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\"><br \/><\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\">So what happened then and what have we to learn from this?<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2020-05-12\/south-korea-investigators-trace-club-coronavirus-cluster\/12240394\">It seems that the index case had a good<\/a>,&nbsp;but not in any way unusual night out. He actually visited five clubs in the evening before testing positive and setting the testers and tracers to work.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\">Using mobile phone and credit card data as well as CCTV footage, they pieced together what needed to be done and who needed to be traced, and tested. Here are the numbers:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\">I night out<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\">5 clubs visited<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\">5,517 close contacts&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\">of the 11,000 people in that area that night<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\">7272 additional tests done.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\">119 new cases detected.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\">I presume that the clubbers are mainly young, so mortality might not arise directly but&nbsp;this&nbsp;cannot be said of vulnerable family and other contacts as the resultant outbreak spreads.&nbsp;<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\">This example does highlight just how&nbsp;transmissible&nbsp;the virus is and how rapidly it can spread in a normally functioning society. Skeptics might feel that it could just be that the 199 new cases were there anyway, but with such a low level of new cases in S Korea, this is unlikely. This was typical of how small outbreaks need to be managed.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\">Issues raised&#8230;.<\/span><\/h3>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\"><b>&#8220;Nerd&#8221; Immunity<\/b><\/span><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\">Our self&nbsp;evident&nbsp;plan is to reduce the incidence to levels where we can &#8216;extinguish&#8217;&nbsp;outbreaks&nbsp;like the one in S Korea. Here, we seem to be focusing of&nbsp;surveillance&nbsp;and&nbsp;technology&nbsp;to get this job done, backed up by yet to be appointed health workers. This will rely on our use of mobile phones, use of credit cards and uptake of new apps. If you like it can be called &#8220;Nerd Immunity&#8221;.&nbsp;<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\">It&#8217;s long term benefits require a vaccine, or effective treatment to be somewhere in the pipeline for success, or that the virus will die out in the summer. More on that later.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\"><b>Herd immunity<\/b><\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\">There is also the view that the S Korea event is exactly what needs to happen if we are ever arrive at herd immunity. This happens when about 80% or more of the population have been infected and generated an&nbsp;antibody&nbsp;response, effectively<\/span><span style=\"font-family: calibri, sans-serif;\">&nbsp;hoovering up the virus with their antibodies, thus ultimately reducing its ability to spread to the&nbsp;vulnerable.&nbsp;<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family: calibri, sans-serif;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-family: calibri, sans-serif;\">For this to happen we need fit young people to become infected and&nbsp;their&nbsp;vulnerable friends, family and contacts to&nbsp;continue&nbsp;to isolate. There would of course be casualties. There will be from the lockdown too. This is the only alternative to the still uncertain development of a vaccine.&nbsp;<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\">It&#8217;s also a debate that doesn&#8217;t really seem to be happening much.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\"><b>Revealing societies bigotry<\/b><\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\"><b><br \/><\/b><\/span><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\">Interestingly of the 5,517 people contacted, 1,982 (35%) have not replied, perhaps not wishing to reveal their identity as the clubs are in a gay nightlife district though also popular with tourists and the military. The event has &nbsp;led to a <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/gay-korea-homophobia-sparked-by-seoul-coronavirus-cluster-driven-by-protestant-right-138491\">sad but predictable anti-gay backlash<\/a> in the homophobic sectors of a conservative&nbsp;society. In this case COVID19 might be used to highlight and perhaps magnify bigotry and hatred.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\">At the time of writing, I cant find anything to suggest that night life<\/span><span style=\"font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;\"> in Itaewon has been restricted as a consequence.&nbsp;<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\"><b>Surveillance<\/b><\/span><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\"><b>&nbsp;society<\/b><\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\">Does this offer a glimpse of the future here too perhaps? We are different from S Korea as they seek to keep their COVID genie in the bottle while ours flew away into the&nbsp;Cheltenham&nbsp;and&nbsp;Anfield&nbsp;air. Yet, one big wave later, if our cases drop to a manageable level, as they might be in London, and with the lockdown being&nbsp;eased we will enter our own phase of testing and tracing while awaiting vaccines or treatment. Thats the stated plan.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\">To&nbsp;achieve&nbsp;this, we already have the same level of surveillance tools used in S Korea, even without shiny new Apps, and similar&nbsp;follow up will have to happen here if we want to keep the pandemic at bay. Many questions remain as to our capability to achieve this, but we shall see.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\">Revealed&nbsp;also is the new level of &#8220;Big Brother&#8221; surveillance in the modern world.&nbsp;Clearly&nbsp;leaving your&nbsp;mobile&nbsp;phone at home and using cash would increase anonymity, but also make effective preventative work more&nbsp;difficult&nbsp;for health workers.&nbsp;<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\">Tyrants and dictators, and indeed any&nbsp;intelligence or even advertising or political organisations can directly or indirectly have their fingers on our individual&nbsp;pulses like never before. Increased persecution&nbsp;of minorities will be a real danger, highlighted and&nbsp;potentially heightened by the pandemic.&nbsp;<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\"><b>Freedom..<\/b><\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-family: &quot;calibri&quot; , sans-serif;\">Absolute freedom might be a noble concept but in reality is balanced by responsibility for our individual and collective actions. For many it remains little more than a distant dream, its very definition is being brought into sharp focus in this COVID19 age.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A recent post of mine&nbsp;looking at post lockdown testing and tracing in S Korea&nbsp;needs a&hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/drbannonsblog.aprendo.co.uk\/drbannonsblog_wp\/2020\/05\/16\/testing-and-tracing-or-big-brother-society-a-test-case\/\" class=\"more-link btn btn-link\">Read More&hellip; <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Continue reading Testing and tracing or big brother society? A test case.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pandemic-management"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbannonsblog.aprendo.co.uk\/drbannonsblog_wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbannonsblog.aprendo.co.uk\/drbannonsblog_wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbannonsblog.aprendo.co.uk\/drbannonsblog_wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbannonsblog.aprendo.co.uk\/drbannonsblog_wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbannonsblog.aprendo.co.uk\/drbannonsblog_wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/drbannonsblog.aprendo.co.uk\/drbannonsblog_wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":676,"href":"https:\/\/drbannonsblog.aprendo.co.uk\/drbannonsblog_wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions\/676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbannonsblog.aprendo.co.uk\/drbannonsblog_wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbannonsblog.aprendo.co.uk\/drbannonsblog_wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbannonsblog.aprendo.co.uk\/drbannonsblog_wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}