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drawingconclusions · 4 years

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CONTACT TRACING APPS + ORIGINS OF THE CORONAVIRUS

I'm not fond of returning to political & social commentary in the midst of this crisis, but I'm growing more concerned about some of the responses to the coronavirus. And I see some hateful people becoming more hateful, and the regularly unhinged individuals becoming more unhinged.

Some in Congress have called for an investigation into the U.S. coronavirus response, and if I'm not mistaken, it's spearheaded in part by Adam Schiff, which is quite interesting. Sure there is much we can learn from our response to this crisis, as with any other crisis, but somehow this seems like another partisan attempt to hurt Trump. Someone stated that during November there were no intelligence briefings/meetings held in the corresponding committee in the House of Representatives on account of the impeachment inquiry that Adam Schiff & others were leading. Is that true? This virus has been active in Wuhan China since at least early December 2019, and possibly late November. Instead of wasting time on bogus impeachment proceedings, the Democrats in Congress should have been thinking ahead and recommending the production of supplies we are now lacking. I personally would like to see that investigated. And as for any other briefings about the coronavirus that Congress did eventually receive in early 2020, please state all the subsequent concrete actions, if any, that members of Congress implemented that helped the American people as a result of those meetings. One of the stimulus bills recently passed by Congress includes 10 billion dollars in international development. Can someone please itemize exactly what that entails, especially when there are Americans in such dire need as a result of the coronavirus economic lockdowns?! And who specifically proposed some of these unnecessary add-ons to the bill? Look, I'm not trying to lump all the members of Congress in the same category, as I recognize there are still some good and decent people who represent us, but it's incredibly disconcerting to see some politicians still looking out for their own interests & pushing their warped ideologies when the American people are going through such a difficult time.

And can someone logically explain why we plan to continue to bring in foreign workers to the U.S. this year when there are more than 16 million Americans currently without jobs? You know that I'm not opposed to legal immigration and I don't hate people of different countries. (For crying out loud, I'm an immigrant who became a U.S. citizen.) It's just that there are so many people in need in our own nation. (And is there any way we can have Personal Protective Equipment manufactured by the private sector to help keep costs low and to hire at least some of these furloughed workers?) Those people who are talking about a near endless lockdown obviously haven't seen the images in the news of miles of cars in line at the food banks across the country or heard about the rise in suicide rates. The economy isn't some kind of abstract concept separate from the lives of the people; the economy is the American people. We have to find ways to bring immediate relief to those who are hurting most in our country.

Apple and Google have formed an alliance (unholy or holy, we've yet to see, LOL) to develop an app that will provide contact tracing for those who may potentially cross paths with a Covid-19 infected individual. Each smartphone will have a unique number or identifier that will reportedly be changed every fifteen minutes, and through the bluetooth functionality of your phone you will be notified if you come in contact with a person who has been infected. The good thing is these companies have stated their intent to allow the public to review the coding involved, and I'm sure there are some talented developers who can give that a good look. Listen, I've never created a complicated app and I'm not a certified developer, but I still have a slew of questions. Unless a project or an app has been abandoned, there are usually continual changes to code, and I'm curious how or if users will be notified of significant revisions to privacy or terms of use. Even though the unique identifier for each phone will be changed every fifteen minutes or so, there still has to be a way to recognize a specific phone for an extended period, otherwise the tracking process wouldn't work. How exactly is that done and where will that identification reside - on a user's phone or on the health agency's server? And will law enforcement or intelligence agencies be allowed to have a backdoor into the software or app, as this coding will seem to have the ability to know who you've come in contact with recently? Some have wondered aloud whether cell phone browser IP addresses will be made known to the health agency servers where all this info is relayed to. If an organization has your IP address, they can likely obtain your identity from your cell phone carrier, and we know by now how some of those carriers are all too willing to hand over your personal information.

While most people view the coronavirus as a temporary problem until we find a vaccine, Apple & Google have stated their intentions of going beyond just a coronavirus app to actually build this contact tracing into their mobile phone operating systems in the near future. So this doesn't appear to be a temporary solution to a temporary problem, but instead a new way of life that they're permanently baking into cell phone software that millions of Americans use every day. And Apple, please don't kid consumers by saying a toggle button in the interface will opt us out of contact tracing once it's in the iOS. Wasn't there a previous version of iOS that would collect location data despite the toggle button settings?

I can't say that I'm very confident in giving any tech companies potentially more influence or leverage over the population. Many of these are the same companies who indulge in targeted bias of conservatives on a daily basis, and who seem to have a love affair with China's communist government (Wasn't Google the company that eagerly offered to help the Chinese military with AI and who was willing to help censor the Chinese population in search engines?). Are these really the ones we should trust with this? Is there any organization we would trust with this?

I'm usually loathe to bring social criticism without offering some kind of alternative. And despite the many faulty computer models we've seen from various universities about the coronavirus, it's clear that this pandemic is still a serious matter. I don't have clear-cut solutions to all this. (Maybe restaurants can build temporary plastic or acrylic stalls to better protect their patrons. Maybe large open warehouses can be converted into spaces that will hold specific restaurants or even retail stores on an alternating basis. The large spaces would provide better social distancing measures for customers and would obviously need to be disinfected on a daily basis.) But ID cards for those who have had the coronavirus? (Does that mean we should also ID flu patients or those with AIDS or STDs?) Just two days ago, I saw a news report that 91 people in South Korea who had recovered from the virus had contracted it again. Does that blow all our theories about immunity out of the water? Has the virus mutated again into another strain? It's incredibly suspicious that there are two virology labs in Wuhan where this pandemic began and some of China's own scientists have stated that the virus was accidentally carried from there into the general population. Now I'm not a doctor, and I don't know how the high contagion rate of Covid-19 compares with other coronaviruses in existence. But wouldn't it make sense for the international community to demand that China be completely transparent about what occurred in that research lab and whether or not this virus was bioengineered in any way, instead of trying hit or miss solutions to all this? Even after I wrote the bulk of this, I saw a news headline that China is now limiting the release of any information related to the beginnings of this pandemic. Wow. That's exactly what communist and socialist governments do. They hide the truth and punish anyone who dissents or speaks against those in power. Unfortunately, there are individuals and groups here in America who are embracing this same fascist mentality. Tech companies, news media, the White House Press Association, politicians, and various levels of government are making it a habit of taking note of those who challenge the status quo. Which is one of the reasons why I write. This is America and true Americans won't stand for the morphing of our beloved nation into any kind of communist or socialist state.

Yes, we have to find appropriate ways to address the coronavirus. But in the process are we really willing to lose what America stands for?

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