2020-03-23 Bloomberg Businessweek

◼TECHNOLOGY BloombergBusinessweek March 23, 2020

expectationsthatjustgotsetonthemwithnowarn-

ing,”saysMichaelSlaby,a technologistwhohelped

leadtheObamaadministration’sefforttofixthe

disastrousrolloutoftheHealthcare.govinsurance

exchangein2013.Developingandtroubleshooting

techinfrastructureduringa nationalcrisiswasa

gargantuan task for Obama’s team, Slaby says:

“They didn’t sleep for two weeks. It was incredi-

bly intense.”

Asia could serve as a model for how technology

can be deployed to help in the crisis, but many of

the measures used there wouldn’t pass muster in

the U.S., where civil liberties are more protected.

In South Korea, one of the hardest-hit countries,

the government used GPS phone tracking, credit

card records, and surveillance video to track the

movements of virus carriers and publish them on

a public website.

In China, tech giants such as Alibaba and Tencent

Holdings Ltd. acted as extensions of the govern-

ment, helping develop a color-coded health rating

system to identify people’s level of risk and moni-

tor their movements. The system, in use at offices,

malls, and subways, scans people seeking to enter

and allows or denies them access based on their

ratings. E-commerce companies were also asked

to report the identities of people buying cough

or fever treatment in certain cities, while WeChat

added functionality so users of its social network

could see if they were in proximity to virus cases.

The digital tracking in China and Korea has its

own consequences. Lists of people suspected to

have the virus, and their contact information, were

leaked in China and spread on social media, attract-

ing online harassment. There’s also evidence that

the apps from Tencent and Alibaba send personal

data to police, which could lead to other human-

rights issues.

Even in a time of crisis, such invasive methods

might not be legal or acceptable in the U.S. For

now, the country will have to make do with the

haphazard system it has. “There are going to be

people a week from now who are going to say, ‘I

tried to get a test but I couldn’t get it,’ ” Anthony

Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy

and Infectious Disease, said in a TV interview on

Fox. “But the totality of the picture is going to

be infinitely better than it was a few weeks ago.”

�GerritDeVynck,withShellyBanjo

JUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY IMAGES. *U.S. DATA FOR MARCH 12-16 ARE INCOMPLETE DUE TO LAG IN RESULT REPORTING. DATA: CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION, KOREA CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION

17

▲ White House officials

hope Verily’s digital

effort can backstop

struggling analog

testing facilities

THE BOTTOM LINE Google has rarely met a problem it doesn’t

want to try to solve, but the coronavirus, combined with a fractured

U.S. health system, is proving especially challenging.

▼ Coronavirus tests

performedthrough

March16,2020*

◼U.S. CDC labs

32k

U.S.

287k

South Korea