ACTUAL EFFECTS OF TRACING ON TOTAL POPULATION

effect on mortality
effect on the individual and family
spread reduction?
lowering immune system response to protect
effect on the system
control
trust in government

EFFECT ON MORTALITY

- from the angle of overall death rate, causing many more non-virus deaths, as well as COVID-19 deaths due to many cases reaching the hospital when already in critical condition [7]:

- not going to/calling a doctor because of the possibility of being tested and if positive, alerting the contact tracing system, and having all your frriends and contacts quarantined.

- availability for medical emergencies is often sharply reduced, with increased death due to breaks in communication, transportation.

- increases in suicide, deaths due to depression, giving up.

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EFFECT ON INDIVIDUAL AND FAMILY

one of the biggest inequities is the unnecessary generation of fear and traumatization which can last a lifetime - traumatization of children in a household told to keep a distance from loved ones, discourage infected mother from nursing babies, degradation of care for those needing support...

from the angle of unemployment, infected, together with their contacts, infected or not, are forced into quarantine and in many cases lose their livelihood.

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SPREAD REDUCTION?

health care workers, monitors, police having contact with the infected, or with the environment of the infected, are possibly the real propagators of the disease spread, carrying the virus from one person(family) to the next.

forces people to quarantine with other members of a household, being mixed constantly with others who are infected and being exposed to comorbidities - only making the situation worse.

from the angle of actually reducing the spread of the virus, because 99% of the people in quarantine due to contact tracing are not sick but are exposed to increased level of a pathogen with subsequent illness and possible mortality. According to 2 WHO officials "The proportion of false positives among all positive results depends not just on the characteristics of the test, but on how common the condition being tested for is among those being tested. This is because even a highly specific test – one that generates hardly any false positives – may still generate more false positive results than there are actual cases of the condition in those being tested (true positives)." [6].

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LOWERING IMMUNE SYSTEM RESPONSE

Contact tracing actually causes a higher infection transmission rate, and more critical reactions to the virus due to:
- reduction in access to and quality of food
- reduced access to medicines or supplements needed for other possible comorbidity conditions.
- changes in the body created by increased fear, anxiety, depression affecting the functioning of the immune system.

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EFFECTS ON SYSTEM

from the angle of population dynamics: since most systems operate on the consent of the governed, even in traditional totalitarian societies, contact tracing would:
- massively effect negatively the trust and consent, and hence the efficacy of the system.
- impede the application of new ways of reducing the transmission of the pathogen or reducing the effects of the illness.

from the angle of the instituting of fines for any number of nonconforming actions, producing tremendous backups and disjuncture in the society.

reduces national preparedness for attack from external forces due to degrading through the increasing involvement in contact tracing activity, and its economic and social impacts.

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CONTROL

from the angle of needing to justify the continuation y fabrication of the system through data misrepresentation, false cause and effect ...

from the angle of keeping the system going through the creation of new pathogens, new fear even to the point of manufacturing a pathogenic source

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TRUST IN GOVERNMENT

from the angle of trust, a sharp divide is driven between the government/specific units of the government and the governed. There is loss of faith.

leads to the creation of a number of apps and methods which stop identification (whether facial, triangulation, etc.), or contact, with many refusing to carry cell phones.

from the angle of efficacy (in this case, the operational efficiency), the level of application in Israel, up to this point, is very low. This is the only good thing about it because it has left most of the population alone. If it becomes more operationally effective, than we are moving into a dictatorial system which has no validity in terms of actually solving the problem of critical disease and mortality.

references

[6] The positives and negatives of mass testing for coronavirus, Jennifer MacLachlan (Epidemiologist, WHO Collaborating Centre for Viral Hepatitis, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity), Benjamin Cowie (Director, WHO Collaborating Centre for Viral Hepatitis, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity)
[7] https://voxeu.org/article/accounting-global-covid-19-diffusion-patterns Accounting for global COVID-19 diffusion patterns for January to April 2020, Yothin Jinjarak, Rashad Ahmed, Sameer Nair-Desai, Weining Xin, Joshua Aizenman, VOX CEPR Policy Portal, 20 May 2020