‘Is contact tracing now futile for the COVID-19 epidemic in most of the world? Probably yes. The infection is already too widespread for disease eradication to be feasible in most places. It might be useful in slowing the spread of the epidemic in areas where hospital resources are at risk of congestion. This benefit will come, however, at considerable costs to the privacy rights and civil liberties of traced individuals, often with no public health benefit because of testing errors. Some may argue that these costs are worth paying temporarily if contact tracing really can help slow the spread of the epidemic. But contact tracing creates incentives to avoid testing and may make the epidemic worse. Studies involving contact tracing can provide useful information to help us better understand transmission dynamics—one fascinating study involving contact tracing has clarified the very limited role that children play in disease spread. Apart from this ancillary benefit, contact tracing does not deserve the central place it has received in the tool kit public health authorities use to control COVID-19.’
Read here (Inference, Sept 28, 2020)
