"Palantir are completely aware that they’re creepy by design – their logistics platform is world class, though it’s more often used to move people closer to death than further away – and Facebook have the same naive arrogance in 2020 that they had in 2015"
"And, in the bigger picture, we must ask: would we do this for HIV? For whatever we do for COVID will be copied by others – first for COVID, and then by others for other conditions."
"Do we want to become one of those countries that takes blood samples as people try to pass through customs?"
"When there are perverse economic incentives around testing, one person with known immunity might take the test in place of others – and others may feel compelled to expose themselves for the chance to feed their kids, or return to a ‘normal life’."
"Any mass testing infrastructure will rely not only upon the accuracy of the test itself, but upon there not being harm(s) for one type of outcome compared with another. "
"And any centralised list of confirmed test results will, by definition, be a list of the entire population and their digital devices. A National Identity Register in all but name. "
"The country will go back to (a new) normal. Do we really want abusive employers or others to be checking antigen and antibody status for employment in Wetherspoons, or at an Amazon warehouse – or so you can pick your own kids up from the school gate? "
"How do we treat someone who gets off a plane from anywhere – whether from China (with their choices), Trumpistan (with their inaction), NYC (with their resources), or Africa (with their resources)? What is the goal of “immunity certificates”? And how will that work at Heathrow?"
"The Home Office will, of course, default to racism and prejudice; fingerprinting arrivals because its Ministers and officials have long wanted to (it went badly). Actions and cultures predicated on secrecy rarely prove effective."
"Announcing an app at PM’s daily press conference might (hopefully) achieve adoption. The app might even do what it’s supposed to. But making that announcement in a way which doesn’t undermine even more vital public health messaging would need a degree of demonstrated competence"
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