"However, it's hard to do contact tracing without a database of positive cases built from accurate testing. Seems like QMC could integrate with contact tracing."
One of the problems with integrating HealthID with contact tracing is that HealthID has promised total privacy, were only the user can see and show their health info to others. No release of an individual's info to the government, no individual location tracking other than where you were tested. HealthID does not know where you have been and when, other than the test facility. So it would not help with contact tracing.
Contact tracing is not going to be able to download the needed information from HealthID, its selling point is that it’s totally private.
Contact tracing works off of the positive test results from virus testing, not positive antibody tests. Contact tracing does not need the HealthID database of positive cases to function. A positive virus test will automatically be reported to the authorities by the lab and/or the healthcare provider, either before or at the same time that the test result is sent to the HealthID user. So the contact tracing would begin independent of whether or not the individual is a user of the app.
If a person has symptoms and/or gets tested for an active virus infection and is positive, then contact tracing will be done to determine who recently came in contact with that person, while the infected person was potentially contagious. The infected person and the close contacts then get quarantined. They would be Red if they have HealthID app and would not be returning to work until cured/cleared.
And this assumes that the HealthID app is even being used with virus testing and not just antibody testing.
Contact tracing can be done based on positive antibody testing, but the focus will be on the positive virus tests results since this tells authorities that the tested person may be currently contagious or was contagious very recently, so that there is a greater payback with tracing that person's contacts.
An asymptomatic person that has a positive antibody test could have been contagious 2 months ago or 2 weeks ago and it is mostly “too late” to be tracking down contacts since the damage has already been done. Better to focus on the “newer active infection cases” since more effective actions can be taken to actually slow the spread.
The original intent of HealthID was as a “Back to Work (or Play)” app based on antibody testing and assumed immunity, such that the Green people would not get re-infected and re-contagious is large group settings. Can they keep expanding and evolving HealthID to include Covid virus and other testing and contact tracing features, etc. Sure but do they have the resources to do that? I don’t know.
At this point, I would be perfectly happy if they just stuck to the original simplified package and even just gave it away (at or below cost), just to get an actual product on the market so people can believe that QMC is real, and not just an endless promiser.
Just make HealthID a real deal to start, rather than dreaming about making it a much bigger deal than it really is.
One of the problems with integrating HealthID with contact tracing is that HealthID has promised total privacy, were only the user can see and show their health info to others. No release of an individual's info to the government, no individual location tracking other than where you were tested. HealthID does not know where you have been and when, other than the test facility. So it would not help with contact tracing.
Contact tracing is not going to be able to download the needed information from HealthID, its selling point is that it’s totally private.
Contact tracing works off of the positive test results from virus testing, not positive antibody tests. Contact tracing does not need the HealthID database of positive cases to function. A positive virus test will automatically be reported to the authorities by the lab and/or the healthcare provider, either before or at the same time that the test result is sent to the HealthID user. So the contact tracing would begin independent of whether or not the individual is a user of the app.
If a person has symptoms and/or gets tested for an active virus infection and is positive, then contact tracing will be done to determine who recently came in contact with that person, while the infected person was potentially contagious. The infected person and the close contacts then get quarantined. They would be Red if they have HealthID app and would not be returning to work until cured/cleared.
And this assumes that the HealthID app is even being used with virus testing and not just antibody testing.
Contact tracing can be done based on positive antibody testing, but the focus will be on the positive virus tests results since this tells authorities that the tested person may be currently contagious or was contagious very recently, so that there is a greater payback with tracing that person's contacts.
An asymptomatic person that has a positive antibody test could have been contagious 2 months ago or 2 weeks ago and it is mostly “too late” to be tracking down contacts since the damage has already been done. Better to focus on the “newer active infection cases” since more effective actions can be taken to actually slow the spread.
The original intent of HealthID was as a “Back to Work (or Play)” app based on antibody testing and assumed immunity, such that the Green people would not get re-infected and re-contagious is large group settings. Can they keep expanding and evolving HealthID to include Covid virus and other testing and contact tracing features, etc. Sure but do they have the resources to do that? I don’t know.
At this point, I would be perfectly happy if they just stuck to the original simplified package and even just gave it away (at or below cost), just to get an actual product on the market so people can believe that QMC is real, and not just an endless promiser.
Just make HealthID a real deal to start, rather than dreaming about making it a much bigger deal than it really is.
