As we reopen the United States, our surveillance effort around the Covid virus will also begin in nursing homes," Verma said. "This will support CDC's efforts to have surveillance around the country and to support efforts around contact tracing" in communities where the virus spread began in long -term care facilities, she added.
A combined lack of preparedness, inadequate testing capacity over the past few months and early misunderstanding of how the virus could spread has seeded death in scores of nursing homes across the country, where patients are not only dying quickly, but often without family and loved ones at their side.
In New York, for example, more than 1,100 state nursing home and adult care facility residents have died from Covid-19 since the outbreak began more than a month ago. New data released by the Department of Health found that at least 1,135 people died at nursing home and adult care facilities as of Wednesday, mostly in New York City. That's about 9 percent of the state's death toll so far.
If one person in the household is sick with COVID-19, everyone else in the home should consider themselves as possibly having an asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic infection, even if they feel fine, doctors say. sorbetto/Getty Images hide caption
If one person in the household is sick with COVID-19, everyone else in the home should consider themselves as possibly having an asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic infection, even if they feel fine, doctors say.
By now, you've likely heard the advice: If you suspect that you're sick with COVID-19, or live with someone who is showing symptoms of the disease caused by the coronavirus, be prepared to ride it out at home.
That's because the vast majority of cases are mild or moderate, and while these cases can feel as rough as a very bad flu and even include some cases of pneumonia, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says most of these patients will be able to recover without medical assistance. (If you're having trouble breathing or other emergency warning signs, seek medical help immediately.)
But this general advice means anyone living in the same household with the sick person could get infected a real concern, since research so far suggests household transmission is one of the main ways the coronavirus spreads. So how do you minimize your risk when moving out isn't an option? Here's what infectious disease and public health experts have to say:
Physically isolate the person who is sick
If you live in a place with more than one room, identify a room or area like a bedroom where the sick person can be isolated from the rest of the household, including pets. (The CDC says that while there's no evidence that pets can transmit the virus to humans, there have been reports of pets becoming infected after close contact with people who have COVID-19.)
Ideally, the "sick room" will have a door that can be kept shut when the sick person is inside which should really be most of the time.
"It would make sense for the person to just to be in their [contained] area in which we presume that things have virus exposure," says Dr. Rachel Bender Ignacio, an assistant professor of infectious diseases at the University of Washington and spokesperson for the Infectious Diseases Society of America. That way, she says, everyone else can move about the home more freely. A door would also make it easier to keep kids out of the isolation room.
Things get trickier if you all live in tighter quarters, like a one-bedroom or studio apartment, or have shared bedrooms. Everyone should still try to sleep in separate quarters from the sick person if at all possible "whether it's one person on a couch, another person on a bed," Bender Ignacio says.
That said, when multiple people share a small living space like that, "it may be very near impossible to avoid exposure," says Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security. "If you are somebody that has other medical conditions or you're an advanced age and you're at risk for having a more severe course [of COVID-19], I do think you should take that into consideration and, if it's feasible, move out."
Limit your physical interactions but not your emotional ones
Even as you try to limit your face-to-face interactions with the sick person, remember, we all need human contact. Try visiting via text or video options like Facetime instead. Old-fashioned phone calls work too.
Whenever you are in the same room together, the CDC recommends that the sick person wear a cloth face covering, even in their own home. In practice, however, Adalja notes that "it can be uncomfortable for someone who's sick to wear a mask all the time in their own house" hence, another reason to limit those interactions.
Just make sure to wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water for at least 20 seconds after every visit with the ill person.
Consider yourself quarantined, too
Bender Ignacio says if one person in the household is sick, everyone else in the household should consider themselves as possibly having asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic infection, even if they feel fine.
That means you should quarantine yourselves at home, too, she says, and ask a friend or neighbor to help with essential errands like grocery shopping so you don't run the risk of exposing other people in the store.
"The important consideration is that the entire house should be considered potentially infected for up to two weeks after people who are ill stop having symptoms," Bender Ignacio says. It's important to understand "that anybody leaving that house also has the possibility of bringing the virus out."
If others in the household do get sick, one after the other, that two-week quarantine should restart with each illness, she says which means you all could end up quarantined together for a long time.
If you have to share a bathroom ...
The CDC says anyone sick with symptoms of COVID-19 should use a separate bathroom if at all possible, but for many of us, that's not an option. If you do share a bathroom, the CDC advises that the caregiver or healthy housemates not go into the bathroom too soon after it's used by a person who has the virus.
"The hope is that with more time, if the patient was coughing in the room, fewer infectious droplets would remain suspended in the air," explains Dr. Alex Isakov, a professor of emergency medicine at Emory University and one of the creators of Emory's online tool for checking for COVID-19 symptoms at home. "It would help if you could ventilate the bathroom by opening a window, or running the exhaust fan, if so equipped."
If feeling well enough, experts say, the person who tested positive for the virus should disinfect the bathroom before exiting, paying close attention to surfaces like door knobs, faucet handles, toilet, countertops, light switches and any other surfaces they touched. If they can't do that, then the healthy housemate should wait as long as feasible before entering to disinfect, then wash their hands thoroughly afterward. And this is key each person in the household should use only their own frequently laundered towel.
Bender Ignacio says it wouldn't be a bad idea to try to remove all the bottles and lotions people tend to keep in the bathroom, so you can minimize the number of surfaces you have to disinfect in there. One idea: Everyone in the home might carry the items they'll need to use in the bathroom with them in a caddy, and remove them when they exit.
Handling food and dirty dishes
The whole goal of isolating a sick person is to minimize the areas they might be contaminating, so having them cook their own food in a shared kitchen should be considered a no-no, Adalja and Bender Ignacio agree.
"You just want to limit that person's interaction with other people and around common-touch surfaces" like the kitchen, says Adalja.
Instead, someone else in the house should prepare food for the sick person and take it to their isolation spot. The CDC recommends using gloves to handle and wash their dirty dishes and utensils in hot, soapy water or in the dishwasher. Make sure to wash your hands thoroughly after handling the used items.
Parenting challenges
Of course, Facetime chats aren't likely to cut it if you're the parent of a young child who is sick. "I think that it's probably unfeasible to mask a sick child in their own home," says Bender Ignacio, adding, "If the child is the one who's sick, they need physical contact. That's important."
Keeping small children away can also be difficult if it is the parent who is sick. "If you have a child and you have a partner and that child is satisfied with the partner's hugs, then that's great," she says.
But "if the sick person is the only caregiver, then there has to be physical interaction," she says. "And I think we should be reassured to some extent that even though children are as likely as adults to get sick, we know now they're much less likely to get severe disease."
As with most things when it comes to parenting, "you just do the best you can," she says.
Laundry
"The good thing about the coronavirus is that it is easily killed by soap and water," says Bender Ignacio.
The CDC advises washing clothes and other fabric items using the warmest water setting appropriate. The agency says it's fine to wash a sick person's clothes with everyone else's and make sure to dry items completely. Wear disposable gloves when handling the sick person's laundry, but don't shake it out first, the CDC says. When you're done, remove the gloves and wash your hands right away.
And don't let the sick person's clothes linger on the floor, says Bender Ignacio. "Make sure that laundry takes the shortest line between the hamper and the washing machine." Consider putting soiled clothes directly in the washer. If you use a hamper, it's a good idea to use a washable liner or a trash bag inside of it, says Bender Ignacio. Otherwise, she advises wiping down the hamper with soapy water afterward.
Disinfecting
Commonly touched, shared surfaces in the house such as tables, chairs, door knobs, countertops, light switches, phones, keyboards, faucets and sink handles should be disinfected daily with a household disinfectant registered with the Environmental Protection Agency, according to the CDC. (It doesn't have to be spray bleach, or a fancy product Comet disinfecting bathroom cleaner, Windex disinfectant cleaner, and many other easily found products are on that list.) The agency advises wearing disposable gloves when disinfecting surfaces for COVID-19.
However, unless you have to change soiled linens or clean up a dirty surface, try not to go into the sick person's room to clean, the CDC says, so you can minimize your contact. Give them their own trash can, lined with a paper or plastic bag that they can then remove and dispose of themselves if possible. Use gloves when taking out the trash and wash your hands right after you remove the gloves, the CDC says.
Protecting vulnerable people in the home
Recovering from COVID-19 at home poses particular challenges if someone else in the home is at higher risk of developing a severe case of the disease. That's of particular concern in multigenerational households. It would probably be safest for that at-risk household member say, a grandparent, or person with cancer or an autoimmune disease to move someplace else temporarily, until everyone else in the family is symptom-free, says Adalja.
However, moving out isn't an option for lots of people, and there's also the chance that the at-risk person might already be infected, in which case they could potentially transmit the virus to anyone else they moved in with, notes Bender Ignacio.
"The best option is to essentially find the safest room or rooms in the house for the most vulnerable people and then exclude everyone else from those rooms," she says. "Visit those people with meals in their room if there is a high concern."
A family in Oxford, Wisconsin, is suing the local sheriff's department after a patrol sergeant threatened to arrest a teenage girl for disorderly conduct for posting on Instagram about being infected with COVID-19.
Amyiah Cohoon, 16, is a student at Westfield Area High School in Westfield, Wisconsin. According to this lawsuit, she and schoolmates went to Disney World and Universal Studios in Florida for a spring break trip in early March, right as the coronavirus was beginning to spread and businesses began to shut down. She and her classmates canceled the trip early and returned home.
Once home, Cohoon began developing symptoms associated with COVID-19. She sought medical assistance, but at the time they were unable to test her to see if she was infected. She was diagnosed with an upper respiratory infection with "symptoms consistent with COVID-19," according to the lawsuit.
Cohoon went home and posted on Instagram letting people know that she had COVID-19 and was in self-quarantine. Her condition worsened and she was brought to the hospital for treatment. She posted again about the experience on Instagram. Finally, they were able to test her, but the test came back negative. According to the lawsuit, doctors told her it was likely she missed the window for testing positive, but she probably did have COVID-19, despite the test results. (False negative results have been an ongoing issue in accurately diagnosing infections.)
After she returned home from this visit, she posted again on Instagram and included a picture of herself at the hospital wearing an oxygen mask.
The very next day, Patrol Sergeant Cameron Klump from Marquette County Sheriff's Department showed up on the family's doorstep. He was there under orders from Sheriff Joseph Konrath to demand that Amyiah and her father, Richard Cohoon, remove Amyiah's Instagram posts. If they refused, Klump said the family faced charges for disorderly conduct and Klump told them he would "start taking people to jail," according to the suit.
Konrath's justification was that there had been no confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the county. He found out about the Instagram post from Amyiah's high school. The Cohoon family had contacted the school to let them know about Amyiah's infection, but nobody ever contacted them back to get more information. It appears that instead the school contacted the police. Under the threat of arrest, Cohoon complied and deleted the allegedly illegal Instagram post.
That evening the family would discover that a school administrator sent out an alert to families accusing Cohoon of making it up and assuring families that any information of infection was just a rumor. "Let me assure you there is NO truth to this," the message read. "This was a foolish means to get attention and the source of the rumor has been addressed. This rumor had caught the attention of our Public Health Department and she was involved in putting a stop to this nonsense."
The family then connected with the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, and the Institute sent a letter to Konrath warning him that he had violated Cohoon's First Amendment rights and demanded both an apology and the promise that there would be no further threats of criminal charges against the family for Amyiah's post.
Konrath refused, and now the Wisconsin Institute of Law and Liberty is suing Konrath and Klump in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin for violating Cohoon's First and 14th Amendment rights. Her Instagram posts are protected speech, the Institute argues, and there was nothing about her posts that violated the county's disorderly conduct law, and even if they did, the Wisconsin Supreme Court has held that disorderly conduct statutes in the state cannot be applied to speech protected by the First Amendment.
The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty is asking the court to rule that Cohoon's posts were protected speech and order that the sheriff's department may not threaten or cite Cohoon or her family for these posts, plus paying "nominal damages."
The sheriff's department is not backing down or even acknowledging an overreaction. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, their position remains that the one negative test means that she did not have COVID-19, which simply isn't how it works. The Sentinel reports:
Sam Hall, an attorney for the sheriff, said the teenager "caused distress and panic" among other parents by claiming she had contracted the coronavirus despite getting a negative test result.
"This case is nothing more than a 2020 version of screaming fire in a crowded theater," he said, referring to speech that is not protected by the First Amendment.
That the sheriff's lawyer is misusing the much-maligned "fire in a crowded theater" argument from Schenck v. United States is a huge tell that these guys don't have a leg to stand on. It's a bad argument, a bad precedent (it was about censoring anti-war activism), and the Supreme Court has subsequently weakened that decision and broadened our free speech protections.
And even if that ruling remained relevant, Amyiah Cohoon was not engaging in the equivalent of "shouting fire in a crowded theater." Because of the significant number of false negative test results, it's appropriate for health staff to treat her as though she likely has COVID-19 based on her symptoms. It's also appropriate for the Cohoon family to attempt to warn families of the students who went with her to Florida that they might have been exposed, too.
It's the school officials and the police who behaved irresponsibly, not Amyiah or her family.
Read the complaint here.
CHICAGO (CBS) Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker on Sunday announced that another airlift of personal protective equipment will soon be coming from China to fight the coronavirus outbreak, and defended the choice to have the state bring in equipment from overseas.
Meanwhile, Illinois Department of Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike said there were 1,197 new cases of COVID-19 diagnosed in Chicago on Sunday, and 33 new deaths for a total of 30,357 confirmed cases statewide and 1,290 deaths.
Pritzker said another airlift of PPE will be coming from China on Monday, after the first flight landed last week. The Illinois National Guard will handle the logistics of transporting the PPE, which will first be taken to a state warehouse and then distributed to first responders and health care professionals.
The first shipment of PPE directly to Illinois from China arrived on Thursday. It was loaded with millions of masks and gloves for Illinois first responders and a state insider asked CBS 2 to keep quiet about the landing until it was completed.
That first flight, which began in Shanghai, cost Illinois taxpayers $888,000 according to state receipts.
Pritzker said if it seemed atypical that a state government would be moving items in from another country, thats because it is. But he also said it was necessary due to the current situation and took a jab at the federal government.
Thats the landscape that were operating in competing with other states, other countries, and our own federal government for supplies, Pritzker said.
Pritzker also emphasized that most disposable PPE used by health care workers comes from China.
As CBS 2s Mike Puccinelli reported Sunday, the issue of testing for coronavirus also came up at the news conference.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Sunday that President Donald Trump should get an F when it comes to testing. But Vice President Mike Pence went on national television Sunday morning to tout what he said is the governments great success when it comes to testing.
Yes, we think weve laid a strong foundation for testing for Phase One, and were going to continue expand testing going forward for the nation in the weeks and months ahead, Pence said on NBCs Meet the Press.
He said as of Sunday, the country was testing about 150,000 people a day and he said he believes that number could double once all the labs in the country are activated.
But Gov. Pritzker said that is easier said than done, and he said most of the states are at the mercy of those labs as Illinois was on Sunday when it came to reporting data.
Today, we got no report from one of the largest commercial laboratories in the country, and so thats a number of tests that were obviously done and completed, but never reported to us, because they didnt report it to anyone in the country, Pritzker said. You know, why that is, I cant tell you.
Pritzker was also asked about protests against ongoing stay-at-home orders in many states, particularly Michigan. The stay-at-home order for Illinois is in place for the rest of the month of April, though it may be extended.
I think I would say to all those folks who legitimately want to get back to work that I do too. I want people to get back to work. I want people to get back to school. And I want us to have a great summer, and so Im looking at all the ways to make that happen, Pritzker said. But were in the middle of an emergency a pandemic and its nothing like weve ever seen, at least in our lifetimes.
Thus, Pritzker said, the state cannot open up if its dangerous to do so.
We have got to be very careful as we make decisions about change in the stay-at-home order to keep people safe, and Im looking at all the ways in which we can open things up and keep people safe, he said.
Pritzker did say people should have more confidence in a brighter future particularly given the likelihood that a treatment could be coming. He emphasized in particular a study on Remdesivir at the University of Chicago.
Published reports said U of C clinical trials have showed promising results for an antiviral drug being tested as a possible treatment for COVID-19. Reports state COVID-19 patients who were treated with Remdesivir, a treatment for the Ebola and Marburg viruses, have been recovering quickly.
Pritzker emphasized that the study on Remdesivir is not over and it is not an approved treatment. But he did say the prospect of treatments for COVID-19 in the coming months should be reassuring.
Pritzker also said while there is no order about wearing masks while outside now only an advisement an order may be coming in the future, whether applying when people are outside in general or only when people are going into essential stores or other spaces with a lot of people.
Indonesians at a traditional market in Bekasi, West Java, on Thursday appear to be ignoring social distancing rules the government put in place to prevent the spread of COVID-19. REZAS/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
Indonesians at a traditional market in Bekasi, West Java, on Thursday appear to be ignoring social distancing rules the government put in place to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Indonesia now has the highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in all of Southeast Asia, according to numbers released by the government on Friday.
The Health Ministry in Jakarta reports 5,923 positive cases following the country's largest daily jump of more than 400 new infections since Thursday. COVID-19 has killed 520 people in Indonesia. In the region, only China, where the novel coronavirus originated, has a higher death toll.
"Transmission is still occurring. This has become a national disaster," Health Ministry official Achmad Yurianto said on Friday, Reuters reports.
He also said testing has increased up to threefold in two weeks.
Indonesia's government has faced criticism for not testing earlier and for not swiftly implementing strict social distancing and travel restrictions.
Indonesia, which is the world's fourth most populous country, did not confirm its first cases until March 2. Since then, cases have grown exponentially and on a daily basis, spreading to all 34 provinces across an archipelago of some 17,000 islands. Still, the first lockdown orders weren't issued until over a month later, and the restrictions only applied to the Jakarta capital region and its population of some 30 million.
This week, President Joko Widodo expanded the restrictions to some other parts of the country. He also advised the public to stay home during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which starts later in April. It's a big ask of the world's most populous Muslim country, as estimated 19.5 million people traveled for the Eid al-Fitr holiday marking the end of Ramadan last year, according to Bloomberg News.
Experts modeling COVID-19 projections for Indonesia say the outlook is grim.
"It could be [another Italy] if the government intervention continues to be in the category of light to moderate and not high-scale intervention," Iwan Ariawan, a biostatistician at University of Indonesia, told the South China Morning Post. The university predicts cases could soar to more than 1.5 million across the country, with more than 140,000 deaths.
Indonesia's latest case numbers mean the country has surpassed its neighbor the Philippines, which previously had the most known cases in Southeast Asia. The Philippines now has the second-highest confirmed cases in the region at 5,878, and Malaysia and Singapore are close behind, both with more than 5,000 confirmed cases.
The Tennessee Department of Health confirmed a total of 7,070 cases of COVID-19 in the state on Sunday, April 19. In addition, 148 people have died, and 724 are hospitalized. Another 3,344 have recovered.
The report shows the following numbers:
The Tennessee Department of Health have also released statistics for patients by race, ethnicity and gender.
Race:
Ethnicity:
Gender:
For more information on COVID-19, go to the CDCwebsite, the Tennessee Department of Healthwebsiteor call (877) 857-2945.
Rene Wallace remembers the prayer she recited one night as a patient at Harlingen State Tuberculosis Hospital in 1964.
Lord, I know I am sick, and if this is the way you want me, I will try to make those around me happy. But if it is your will, please heal me. I need to be with my children, she said.
The Edinburg resident was 32 years old at the time, and it was Christmas morning when her husband Jack Wallace, founder of Jack Wallace Farms, told her that he had to take her to the hospital. She was still in her pajamas, wrapping gifts in bed for their five children.
The doctor called my husband and told him I had tuberculosis, she recalled. They said I could go to the hospital at my own free will, or a sheriff would come and take me.
Tuberculosis, also called TB, is an airborne disease that attacks the lungs and is highly contagious. In 1964, the year Wallace contracted TB, there were more than 50,000 people suffering from it in the U.S., according to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention.
Rene stayed in quarantineat the Harlingen hospital for three months and said she only got to visit with family once and thenonly through a window.
I just could not quit crying, she said. I just wanted to see my children and be with my husband. I missed my life at home.
Rene, now 87, knows that across the world today, millions of people are experiencing the same frustration and loneliness she felt in that hospital room more than five decades ago. It has almost been four weeks since a shelter-at-home order was enacted in Hidalgo County, and her advice to those who feel fearful during this time is simple: hang onto hope.
There was never a day I lost hope that I would be healed, she said. I was sad, I could not stop crying, but I never felt hopeless. God can correct anything, in a twinkling of an eye. I was very isolated and sad, but I knew that this wasnt permanent.
Her husband visited her every other day, and Rene said that he was a pillar of strength for her during that time. Jack, an Edinburg High School graduate, a well-known Valley farmer, and member of the RGV Sports Hall of Fame, died seven years ago.
So, Rene knows what it means to be courageous. Also an EHS graduate, she received her two-year associates degree from Edinburg College, which had been a junior college since 1927. However, she believed that students of the Rio Grande Valley deserved the opportunity to get a complete higher education. In 1951, Rene helped represent the city of Edinburg at the state capitol to convince legislators to turn the college into the four-year university it is now. In 2013, she was honored as one of The University of Texas-Pan Americans Pillars of Success for those efforts.
A successful businesswoman for more than 40 years before retiring, she took the lead on many housing development projects across the region, and was named the Texas Business Woman of the Year in 2006 by the National Republican Congressional Business Advisory Council. She was also the first woman to serve as vice president for the Edinburg Chamber of Commerce.
Facing tuberculosis and being separated from her family marked the most challenging time of her life, but Rene attributes her recovery to faith, saying that the check-up after she prayed, doctors cleared her to go home. Jack came and got her on the Monday after Easter that year, and on the way, they stopped by her childrens school to pick them up.
Jack Wallace Jr., second youngest child of five, remembers sprinting to his mother that day.
I was 7, and I just missed my mother a lot, we all did, said Wallace Jr., who is also an EHS graduate. We got out of school early when she came back, and I just sprinted to her car to see her.
The kids made a sign that hung in front of their house that read: Welcome Home Mom.
It was a difficult time being away from my mother, but we were always hopeful we knew that God had her in his hand, said Jack Jr., who is now 62 and runs the family farm.
Rene has 14 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren but hasnt slowed down. She stays busy by tending to her properties and investments. Her elegantly furnished home in Edinburg is the 119th house she has either built or designed.
She is also still striving to sharpen her mind by playing various puzzles and games. In fact, in her late 60s, she defeated Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates in a game of Bridge, a trick-trading card game. She still travels nationwide to compete in card tournaments, but for the time being, has been playing online.
As a beloved and respected figure in Edinburg, Rene encourages the community to seek peace and stay composed.
It will be over, we are going to pass through this, she said. We have to conduct ourselves with a positive attitude knowing that its going to end, and we must do everything we can to keep from getting it.
Editors note: This story has been updated to remove information from an earlier version that, in error, compared elements of tuberculosis with COVID-19.
Apple and Google recently announcedthey will jointlylaunch digital contact tracing tools to combat COVID-19. Their Bluetooth technology will allow Android and iOS phones to communicate and track when individuals pass within six feet of someone who tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Apple and Google are not alone. Around the world, countries including the UK, China, Taiwan, and South Korea have implemented comparable programs.
While these steps appear desirable, they raise serious risks for autonomy, privacy, and data security. The information collected could be used for commercial purposes, hacked by cybercriminals, or used to discriminate against individuals with COVID-19 or other health conditions. Moreover, it is difficult to establish whether the apps are beneficial and surveillance methods implemented now may persist long after the pandemic subsides.
To address these concerns, Apple and Google promised there will be strong protections around user privacy and emphasized that transparency and consent are of utmost importance. However, tech companies have repeatedly failed to protect user privacy and security; the time to rely on privacy legislation and industry self-regulation has passed. Instead of those top down approaches, which privilege legislators, lobbyists, and tech companies over individuals, we argue for a bottom-up approach.
State and federal lawmakers should create a right to digital self-defense ensuring that Americans can freely use anonymity, privacy, and cybersecurity tools to shield themselves against widespread and relentless data collection by private and public actors. Some examples of these tools are the TOR browser, virtual private networks (VPNs), personal servers such as the FreedomBox, and low-tech solutions such as clothing that disrupts facial recognition.
There are many more available tools of digital self-defense, and not all of them will be relevant to COVID-19 apps; nevertheless, recognition of a right to digital self-defense may serve as a catalyst to the development of new tools, covering different platforms, operating systems and scenarios.
While some of these tools are widely available, their use often comes at a cost. Specifically, people who adopt them may be subjected to increased government scrutiny. On the public side for example, the FBI usedspywareto track Tor users activity. Whether such surveillance constitutes an illegal search under the Fourth Amendment remains anunresolvedlegal question. In this context, people may wish to protect their privacy and cybersecurity even if they have committed no crimes.
On the private side, platforms such as Netflix and Hulu often refuse access to people who use these tools of digital self-defense. Some platforms, including Google, penalize users by requiring them to complete time-consuming CAPTCHAs thattrain the companys algorithmsto identify objects such as street signs and fire hydrants. These mechanisms frustrate users and encourage them to sacrifice privacy for easier access to services.
The right to digital self-defense may find support in the Bill of Rights, which was designed to protect states and their citizens from government tyranny. In the information age, we are witnessing the emergence of a new oppressive force digital tyranny, where tech companies threaten our privacy and security through widespread surveillance, profiling, and manipulation. They often work with federal agencies through public-private partnerships, such as the collaboration between Amazon Ring and up to400 law enforcement authorities.
Public-private partnerships including those directed at COVID-19 tracking can excuse federal agencies from respecting individual rights and freedoms because tech platforms conduct the surveillance, and most constitutional protections provided by the Bill of Rights do not extend to these private actors. Once the data is obtained, they pass it to their government partners. But the Bill of Rights is of limited effectiveness in the information age if it doesnt also extend to technology companies.
Some may argue that a right to digital self-defense is unnecessary because people can always choose not to opt-in to a contact tracing program. However, this criticism is rooted in outdated notions of consent. Tech companies have a history of using deceptive methods to influence peoples choices. They use deceptivechoice architectureto nudge people to consent. Besides, some surveillance programs are not optional; Chinas mandated contract tracing app Health Code controls where citizens may travel, and U.S. programs could shift in that direction.
Others might contend that a more desirable approach is to demand that tech companies take privacy and security more seriously. However, platforms have no obligation to implement safeguards beyond what the law requires, and U.S. privacy laws are inadequate and overly susceptible toinfluence by industry lobbyists.
A federal right to digital self-defense can serve as a foundation on which state lawmakers can build. For example, the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) sets a national floor for health privacy, and states can pass their own laws that provide protection above and beyond what HIPAA mandates.
Alternatively, states could establish the right to digital self-defense on their own by statute and incorporate it into their constitutions. In states where citizens can pass their own laws through ballot initiates, such as California and Alaska, the right could be implemented by the people, thus bypassing state legislatures, and stifling lobbyist efforts to water down legislation.
The COVID-19 pandemic is a public health emergency, but widespread surveillance carried out by private actors is not the solution. Given Big Techs track record, the social cost of widespread surveillance likely outweighs potential benefits, especially if tracking persists beyond the pandemic.
Lawmakers should codify a right to digital self-defense and encourage Americans to use anonymity, privacy, and cybersecurity tools to ensure that their privacy and security are not threatened by digital tyranny.
Ido Kilovaty is an assistant professor of law at The University of Tulsa College of Law, visiting faculty fellow at Yale Law Schools Center for Global Legal Challenges and an affiliated fellow at Yale Law Schools Information Society Project. He was a 2028-2019 Cybersecurity Policy Fellow at New America.
Mason Marks is assistant professor at Gonzaga University School of Law and an affiliated fellow at Yale Law Schools Information Society Project. In addition to a law degree from Vanderbilt University, he also holds an M.D. from Tufts University School of Medicine.
Google searches for terms related to COVID-19 will now display information for more than 2,000 COVID-19 testing centers across 43 states in the US, the company tells The Verge.
There are other changes, too. When you search for something related to COVID-19, youll now see a new Testing tab as part of the information shown in Googles COVID-19 SOS alert. When you click or tap that Testing tab, youll see a number of resources regarding COVID-19 testing at the top of your search results. Those include: a link to the Centers for Disease Controls (CDC) online COVID-19 symptom checker, a suggestion to talk to a healthcare provider if you think you should be tested, a link to COVID-19 testing information from your local health authorities, and a note that you may need to call ahead to a testing center to make sure you can actually get a test.
The Testing tab will also show you information about specific testing centers unless youre in Connecticut, Maine, Missouri, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Oregon or Pennsylvania, Google tells The Verge. Thats because Google is only surfacing testing locations that have been approved for publishing by health authorities, the company says. For the same reason, Google is only listing a single testing center located in Albany for the state of New York, but the company expects to add more New York listings soon.
Heres what the results look like for me. Im writing this from Portland, OR, so the results dont list testing centers near me.
COVID-19 testing criteria and availability vary based on where you live, which is why Google is pointing toward local information with these resources. The testing information comes from government agencies, public health departments, or directly from healthcare institutions, according to a Google support document.
Google launched a COVID-19 website with information and resources about the pandemic on March 21st. Googles sister company Verily also offers free COVID-19 tests to people in parts of California, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania if they qualify after taking an online screening.
Google isnt the only company working to make it easier to find COVID-19 testing information. Last weekend, Apple launched a website so healthcare providers and labs that offer COVID-19 testing can submit their information and appear in Apple Maps search results as testing sites.
San Francisco public health officials will launch a massive campaign to test as many residents as possible in an area with some 5,700 residents who live between South Van Ness and Harrison Streets from Cesar Chavez to 23rd Street, according to fliers distributed in the testing area.
The campaign a collaboration that includes UCSF, the Latino Task Force for COVID-19 and the SF Department of Public Health will take place over four days starting on April 23.
People in the Mission have been heavily affected by COVID-19, the announcement explains. Community-based testing will provide important information to people on whether they have COVID-19 now or had it in the past and will help us understand how to stop the spread of the virus.
All community members who are 4 years old and older who live in the study area are encouraged to attend, regardless of symptoms, the flier urges.
Its unclear if the city knows of a particular outbreak in the testing area. So far, it has not reported its COVID-19 numbers by geography.
The city has yet to publish the maps, but there are a lot of cases in the Mission District, said Dr. George Rutherford, a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at UCSF. And a lot of our contact tracing is leading to the Mission District.
Im really happy someone is seriously considering the undocumented and often forgotten engine that helps drive the city, said George Lipp who lives in the testing area and plans to participate. Keep everyone healthy, its morally right and good civic and economic administration.
Residents are asked to schedule an appointment starting Tuesday here.
Volunteers will visit households between Wednesday and Friday.
The testing sites will be at Garfield Park, Ninos Unidos Park, Flynn Elementary School, and Cesar Chavez Elementary school.
During UCSFs Grand Rounds on Thursday, the specialists talked about the ethnic disparity in COVID-19 cases with Latinx residents comprising 23 percent of the cases in San Francisco and only 16 percent of the population.
Rutherford said Thursday that he supported aggressive testing in the Mission District and was pleased that Mission Neighborhood Health Center had started testing its patients with COVID-19 symptoms this last week.
The testing announced in the fliers, however, is a huge jump from what has been done so far.
Dr. Brenda Storey, the executive director of the Mission clinic, said Friday that in their first week of testing, the clinic had access to 100 tests and had tested 20 patients. She did not yet have results for any of those tests. She said she could see ramping up the drive-through test site to accommodate 200 residents a day.
Read about the Census Tracts demographics here.
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