Surveillance response

Rather than emphasizing personal, individual freedoms, perhaps the leaders of our civilized society should focus on establishing and assuring fair and effective rules that protect the freedom of all individuals. Necessarily this means that all citizens must accept some reduction in their individual freedoms while benefitting from the limits on the freedoms of others.

For example, newspapers have the freedom to publish lies about individuals, but that freedom of speech is limited by the affected individual’s legal right to litigate for financial or other compensation because the lie was published. Similarly, the rules of the road establish rights-of-way. A driver may ignore them, but police and courts enforce the rules with tickets and fines, as do insurance companies when an accident occurs, liability is established, and the driver responsible must personally cover the expenses.

With a pandemic, there are variations the severity of an infection, from hardly noticeable to life threatening. Exposure to any infected individual may result in an infection in 5 to 14 days. If everyone wore masks, respected social distancing and stayed home according to advisories or requirements, the number of virus particles would drop to nearly zero. Since exposure protection rules have not been followed (“I can do what I want”), more virus particles are produced and spread.

That leaves only tracing contacts and potential contacts as a way to control the pandemic. The persons an individual contacted while infective are recalled and tested; and if they become infected, they are quarantined so as to prevent passing the infection to another person.

Over the last couple of decades, surveillance by cameras at banks, businesses, highways and our homes has grown rapidly and is accepted as an infringement on individual freedom because it is a protection for the majority. The ability to use cell phone data to trace possible sources of infection and individuals that may have been exposed to the virus is much better than a week-old memory. Cell phone tracing is not that different from camera surveillance or tracing credit card use.

Dan Leonard,

Colfax