Friday, June 26, 2020

Does New Jersey’s New Contact Tracing Initiative Expose Catastrophic Failure of Government?

In early June, 2020, New Jersey began a COVID-19 tracking program. A NJ Star-Ledger editorial about the initiative starkly brought home to me a stunning fact. In If a virus detective calls, don’t hang up. Your life may depend on it, the Star-Ledger opined: 

New Jersey is in the process of launching its most aggressive strategy yet against the coronavirus, by deploying an army of health officials known as contact tracers. . . .  [C]ontact, test, and isolate when necessary — and if you stay with it long enough (as they did in South Korea, Hong Kong, New Zealand, etc.), the virus is stopped in its tracks. . . . [T]his state has no chance to eradicate COVID unless we all buy into the most proven tool in public health and epidemiology.

Emphasis added. The Star-Ledger didn’t acknowledge, or maybe didn’t connect to, the obvious conclusion. 

Contact tracing is actually a good idea and in my view a legitimate function of government in a pandemic. So my question is, if contact tracing is  “the most proven tool in public health and epidemiology,” why is it only now being employed? Why didn’t the state have an established CT program in place and ready to go? After all, NJ has a State Office of Emergency Management that exists just for the purpose of being prepared to respond to emergencies. Pandemics aren’t exactly unforeseeable emergencies. 

If this “most aggressive strategy” was put into effect in January or February, the virus may have been “stopped in its tracks” and thousands of businesses and hundreds of thousands of jobs could have been saved. We could have avoided the indignity of dividing the economy into expendable and non-expendable businesses and workers. We could have avoided the freedom-crushing lockdowns.

A government’s job is to keep us safe and free, so pandemic response is a proper governmental job--not in the wide-ranging dictatorial way of King Murphy, but through limited, established, common sense, rights-respecting actions. As more info comes in, it’s becoming increasingly clear to me that the months-long lockdown and economic carnage were unnecessary. We have been witness to a catastrophic failure of government. 

Related Reading:

We Need Economists, Civil Libertarians, and Epidemiologists in the COVID-19 Discussion The tradeoffs among considerations of health, prosperity, and liberty are catching up with us even if we don't want to acknowledge them.
By J.D. Tuccille

Were the COVID-19 Lockdowns a Mistake? Many Americans are losing patience with statewide shelter-in-place orders. By Zach Weissmueller for Reason.com

Democratic Leaders Praise George Floyd Protesters, Show Utter Contempt for Everyone Else Still in Lockdown Bill de Blasio and Phil Murphy evince little sympathy for nail salon owners or Jewish mourners. by Robby Soave for Reason.com

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