Here is a link to a list of states that have or will have a contact tracing app.
November 30, 2020: Support for Washington, Minnesota, Maryland, Washington D.C., Connecticut, and California added for iPhone and Android. Apple and Google announced plans to build COVID-19 tracing into iPhone and Android operating systems on April 10. The move marked a major partnership between...
9to5mac.com
In my country a contact tracing app is available in only 1 province. Asian countries had these back in January, February and March. For instance Singapore a free capitalist country had this a contact tracing app in March. It took until June before these apps were available widely in Europe. Australia had a contact tracing app in April.
These contact tracing apps are a very useful tool in combating the spread of Covid. Why are we so slow to adopt this useful tool? We will allow our location to be tracked for navigation, finding places to shop or eat. I really don't see a problem using it to find people who may have been infected. If you don't want to be tracked somewhere turn off the location tracking or just turn off your phone if you are not tech knowledgeable enough to turn off your tracking. By the way for those that don't know if you have a cell phone you are always tracked unless it is off. It is just that the tracking is anonymous because of privacy laws. But if for instance if the police had a warrant they could go to your service provider and find your location data. In many states the police can even get this location data under certain circumstances without a warrant.
When I referred to testing sufficient to deliver the result quickly I meant test results that are returned within a day not the 15 minute tests. It is now taking several days to return test results in many places in Canada and the USA. In my province it is as much as 4 days to get a test result. A lot of movement of infected people can occur in 4 days.
Temperature screening is not useless. It is not highly accurate because it depends on the person having a fever at the time the are screened but it identifies some people with a fever. If that person then quarantines rather than continuing to be among people there is a reduction in spread. I went through the temperature screening at the Hong Kong Airport during the Sars epidemic. It consisted of 2 people with temperature screening cameras in an elevated booth in the middle of a main hallway. They were capable of screening any flow of people going past them without anyone slowing down or even paying attention to the screening.
A search on google on "Covid church gathering court rulings" will show that all the challenges to limitations on church gatherings have been thrown out. This has gone all the way to the Supreme court of the USA. There have been no successful constitutional challenges to lock downs in the courts. The only court challenges to lock downs that have been successful are procedural challenges meaning the way it was implemented was wrong not that it was unconstitutional. There also has not been a successful constitutional challenge yet to a mask mandate although there are several still in the courts. There is substantial legal precedence that will likely result in these lawsuits failing. In reality it is unlikely that any of us has the right to defy a quarantine, lock down or mask mandate. It is not rights that you have that is shaping the government response on these issues it is political pressure.
As I said before the governments of Canada and the USA have the legal powers to do all of the 8 things except the contact tracing app that I listed to effectively combat Covid. The contact tracing app requires permission of the owner of the phone.
As far as my reply to the concerns about freedoms the question is do you think everyone should have the unfettered right to spread Covid?
I am not advocating for a repeat of the ineffective lock downs and reopening such as we have seen so far in North America. I am advocating for short targeted containment of geographic areas with high Covid rates to knock down the numbers and then regulation and strong public messaging to keep people doing the things we need to to keep the virus down at low levels so we can return to our usual lives.
On another note where I live in Manitoba and the adjoining province of Saskatchewan as well as a small part of Ontario there was very low Covid through late June and most of July. I sold 1.3G shows in these areas but not anywhere else in the country where there was a higher level of Covid. Now after reopening like everywhere else the Covid came back and the business stopped. There was no mask mandate in place and people social distanced less. This same pattern has repeated again and again all across the world. You would think governments would learn. Hopefully they will soon.
