Aaron Snow Profile picture
Believelander in DC, digital govt things @Georgetown @BeeckCenter. Not here anymore — I'm aaronfromcleveland @ threads, aaronsnow @ https://t.co/09sQTK40el and bsky
Jun 24, 2022 12 tweets 3 min read
One more short thread about how #COVIDAlert played out, in part to explain more explicitly why I don't think anyone was really "wrong" here, given their respective circumstances. But it's really worth understanding what we can and should do about those circumstances. So: (1/n) (This thread will make more sense if you've read the original blog post and/or the previous thread on this topic, both here: )
Jun 22, 2022 8 tweets 4 min read
Tl;dr: I believe the primary reason why #COVIDAlert (and the many sibling apps in the U.S.) didn't meet expectations starts with the fact that the process of reporting an infection into the app depended on a huge, highly fragmented web of health and test result providers. 1/ Before the prevalence of at-home tests, there was enormous diversity in the "last mile" of test result delivery into patients' hands: in-person, texts, phone calls, paper reports, websites, hotlines. That diversity was not managed, and was probably unmanageable, centrally.