WEBVTT - Universities to Create Contact Tracing Mobile App for Students

0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:03.720
<v Speaker 1>It's Thursday, May seven. I'm Oscar Ramirez from the Daily

0:00:03.760 --> 0:00:06.440
<v Speaker 1>Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is your daily

0:00:06.440 --> 0:00:11.520
<v Speaker 1>coronavirus update. Researchers at three universities have received federal research

0:00:11.560 --> 0:00:15.160
<v Speaker 1>grants to create a contact tracing mobile app for students

0:00:15.200 --> 0:00:18.279
<v Speaker 1>that could track a person's real time location and symptoms,

0:00:18.600 --> 0:00:21.040
<v Speaker 1>and it would calculate a type of social credit score

0:00:21.320 --> 0:00:24.320
<v Speaker 1>that determines your COVID nineteen risk and also a risk

0:00:24.320 --> 0:00:29.040
<v Speaker 1>score for locations. Tammy Abdolah, senior reporter at dot l A,

0:00:29.600 --> 0:00:32.760
<v Speaker 1>joins us for how some universities hope to keep students safe.

0:00:32.920 --> 0:00:35.680
<v Speaker 1>Thanks for joining us, Tammy, thanks so much, glad to

0:00:35.680 --> 0:00:39.440
<v Speaker 1>be here. I wanted to talk about contact tracing and

0:00:39.520 --> 0:00:42.960
<v Speaker 1>this kind of notion of a social credit score. You know,

0:00:43.040 --> 0:00:45.440
<v Speaker 1>everybody's been saying contact tracing is one of those key

0:00:45.479 --> 0:00:49.520
<v Speaker 1>elements that states are gonna need to reopen their economies

0:00:49.760 --> 0:00:52.480
<v Speaker 1>and also track the spread of the virus so that

0:00:52.760 --> 0:00:55.560
<v Speaker 1>we don't fall into this thing where we have hotspots

0:00:55.600 --> 0:00:58.360
<v Speaker 1>again and we overload the health care system. And right now,

0:00:58.440 --> 0:01:02.000
<v Speaker 1>research at the University of Southern California, Emory University, and

0:01:02.000 --> 0:01:05.480
<v Speaker 1>the University of Texas Health Science Center. They've all received

0:01:05.520 --> 0:01:08.920
<v Speaker 1>a federal research grant to create a mobile app for

0:01:08.959 --> 0:01:11.520
<v Speaker 1>contact tracing. Tammy tell us a little bit about this.

0:01:12.440 --> 0:01:15.120
<v Speaker 1>So what they're trying to do is they're trying to

0:01:15.160 --> 0:01:19.080
<v Speaker 1>figure out a way to provide people with a sense

0:01:19.160 --> 0:01:23.840
<v Speaker 1>of the risk that they face of getting COVID nineteen

0:01:24.480 --> 0:01:29.039
<v Speaker 1>and of the areas that they're visiting giving them COVID nineteen.

0:01:29.200 --> 0:01:31.520
<v Speaker 1>So the idea that they've sort of been working on

0:01:31.920 --> 0:01:35.560
<v Speaker 1>is creating this sort of risk score that you get

0:01:35.680 --> 0:01:38.920
<v Speaker 1>based on the various locations you travel to, and those

0:01:38.959 --> 0:01:43.000
<v Speaker 1>locations would be gathered via your phone. You know, you'd

0:01:43.000 --> 0:01:46.080
<v Speaker 1>have to turn on location tracking and doing that, they

0:01:46.240 --> 0:01:49.480
<v Speaker 1>sort of put together a risk score based on all

0:01:49.480 --> 0:01:51.720
<v Speaker 1>the various places you went. So if you stay at

0:01:51.760 --> 0:01:55.000
<v Speaker 1>home all day, every day for weeks at a time,

0:01:55.040 --> 0:01:57.320
<v Speaker 1>your riskcore would probably be rather low. But if you're

0:01:57.360 --> 0:01:59.800
<v Speaker 1>going out and you're delivering for Amazon, your risk score

0:01:59.840 --> 0:02:03.080
<v Speaker 1>my be rather high. And then they would take all

0:02:03.120 --> 0:02:07.000
<v Speaker 1>the locations that you've been to and where people end

0:02:07.080 --> 0:02:10.840
<v Speaker 1>up gathering at and create an aggregate risk score for

0:02:10.960 --> 0:02:13.880
<v Speaker 1>those areas. And one of the reasons why this is

0:02:13.919 --> 0:02:17.960
<v Speaker 1>being done this way through technology is they say that

0:02:18.000 --> 0:02:20.000
<v Speaker 1>the spread of the virus is moving too fast for

0:02:20.120 --> 0:02:24.440
<v Speaker 1>manual contact tracing. So the traditional ways, somebody would call

0:02:24.520 --> 0:02:27.800
<v Speaker 1>you on the phone say hey, you either tested positive

0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:30.840
<v Speaker 1>or you might have been in an area or you

0:02:30.880 --> 0:02:33.000
<v Speaker 1>know somebody that has tested positive, and then you go

0:02:33.080 --> 0:02:35.080
<v Speaker 1>through the whole rounds. You know you should self isolate,

0:02:35.120 --> 0:02:37.480
<v Speaker 1>blah blah blah, all that stuff. And they're saying that

0:02:37.480 --> 0:02:40.000
<v Speaker 1>that's a little too slow for the spread that's going

0:02:40.040 --> 0:02:41.720
<v Speaker 1>on right now. So they want to do this in

0:02:41.720 --> 0:02:44.840
<v Speaker 1>a technological way, where as you mentioned, they can create

0:02:44.880 --> 0:02:47.440
<v Speaker 1>the maps. It can ping you maybe if you're going

0:02:47.560 --> 0:02:50.080
<v Speaker 1>to an area that could be a potential hotspot. So

0:02:50.160 --> 0:02:52.560
<v Speaker 1>this is kind of where they're going just to help out.

0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:55.720
<v Speaker 1>The issue is that a lot of people don't even

0:02:55.760 --> 0:02:58.880
<v Speaker 1>know they have this, and yet they are contagious for

0:02:58.960 --> 0:03:02.320
<v Speaker 1>one to two days for they actually developed symptoms. So

0:03:02.360 --> 0:03:05.680
<v Speaker 1>it's just moving so quickly and relying on human memory

0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:08.880
<v Speaker 1>to remember everyone you dealt with, met up with, Especially

0:03:08.960 --> 0:03:12.640
<v Speaker 1>if we start reopening society even more in a day

0:03:12.760 --> 0:03:14.800
<v Speaker 1>or in two days, it's hard to remember who you

0:03:14.800 --> 0:03:17.400
<v Speaker 1>were in touch with, let alone fourteen days. And so

0:03:17.560 --> 0:03:20.119
<v Speaker 1>the idea is technology can do a lot better job

0:03:20.240 --> 0:03:24.000
<v Speaker 1>remembering things. And once you start building enough data together

0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:27.520
<v Speaker 1>and getting these aggregate scores put together of risk and

0:03:27.600 --> 0:03:31.880
<v Speaker 1>also adding in more testing, then you start seeing, for example,

0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:34.640
<v Speaker 1>if someone's risk score is between zero and one, so

0:03:34.840 --> 0:03:38.920
<v Speaker 1>zero no risk one, you have it. You can see

0:03:38.960 --> 0:03:41.480
<v Speaker 1>that once you aggregate for an area, when people start

0:03:41.480 --> 0:03:43.920
<v Speaker 1>turning into ones. Oh, they ended up getting it. Well,

0:03:43.960 --> 0:03:47.160
<v Speaker 1>the overall risk for everywhere they went to over those

0:03:47.160 --> 0:03:50.360
<v Speaker 1>fourteen days goes up, and you can see your overall

0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:53.680
<v Speaker 1>risk go up as well. When are the universities getting

0:03:53.720 --> 0:03:55.960
<v Speaker 1>started on this and when are they expected to have

0:03:56.360 --> 0:03:59.160
<v Speaker 1>some type of app ready to go for widespread use.

0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:03.400
<v Speaker 1>So they started officially working on this per the grant

0:04:03.720 --> 0:04:07.800
<v Speaker 1>on Friday, so this past Friday, May first, and the

0:04:07.840 --> 0:04:11.040
<v Speaker 1>idea is that they will have this worked through and

0:04:11.120 --> 0:04:13.280
<v Speaker 1>developed in the hopes of being able to put it

0:04:13.360 --> 0:04:16.479
<v Speaker 1>forward for their student populations should they do returning the

0:04:16.520 --> 0:04:19.840
<v Speaker 1>class in August or for the false semester. So that's

0:04:19.839 --> 0:04:23.279
<v Speaker 1>sort of the plan that Saar Shahabi over at USC

0:04:23.760 --> 0:04:26.200
<v Speaker 1>mentioned to me that they were all sort of discussing.

0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:28.160
<v Speaker 1>He hopes to have it ready in time for August

0:04:28.279 --> 0:04:31.360
<v Speaker 1>for USC students, specifically, some of the problems that are

0:04:31.360 --> 0:04:34.520
<v Speaker 1>associated with this all the time is concerns about privacy

0:04:34.640 --> 0:04:38.800
<v Speaker 1>and then widespread adoption. There's always these concerns that people

0:04:38.839 --> 0:04:41.279
<v Speaker 1>are just not going to want to download it, and

0:04:41.320 --> 0:04:43.240
<v Speaker 1>they're not going to want to opt in for the

0:04:43.320 --> 0:04:46.040
<v Speaker 1>location tracking for fear that they're going to be tracked,

0:04:46.040 --> 0:04:48.840
<v Speaker 1>for fear that somebody will know where they're at at

0:04:48.839 --> 0:04:51.719
<v Speaker 1>all times. What have people involved with the grant, what

0:04:51.760 --> 0:04:55.600
<v Speaker 1>have they said with regards to that. They basically say that, hey, look,

0:04:55.760 --> 0:04:58.960
<v Speaker 1>you opt into location tracking for convenience all the time,

0:04:59.320 --> 0:05:02.839
<v Speaker 1>whether it's for your map app or for a game,

0:05:03.160 --> 0:05:06.440
<v Speaker 1>or for social reasons or free help. So they're's sort

0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:09.479
<v Speaker 1>of argument is that this is a way to ensure

0:05:09.640 --> 0:05:12.560
<v Speaker 1>society can return back to normal and that the economy

0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:15.320
<v Speaker 1>can keep running and people also can be aware of

0:05:15.360 --> 0:05:17.919
<v Speaker 1>the risk that they carry and that they may be

0:05:18.000 --> 0:05:20.520
<v Speaker 1>exposed to. The flip side is that people who are

0:05:20.520 --> 0:05:24.760
<v Speaker 1>really concerned about people's privacy and surveillance, like folks at

0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:28.919
<v Speaker 1>the Electronic Frontier Foundation, are obviously worried about what this

0:05:29.000 --> 0:05:33.200
<v Speaker 1>actually looks like. It's a concern obviously, but in places

0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:36.240
<v Speaker 1>where they have done some of these things, South Korea

0:05:36.320 --> 0:05:40.560
<v Speaker 1>and China, they've used these location based digitized contract tracing.

0:05:40.680 --> 0:05:44.240
<v Speaker 1>It's been pretty successful obviously the areas where you know

0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:47.039
<v Speaker 1>there's mandated compliance so you got to get around that,

0:05:47.360 --> 0:05:50.159
<v Speaker 1>but it has shown to be pretty effective. And going

0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:53.520
<v Speaker 1>back to the manual contact tracing, when things are moving

0:05:53.560 --> 0:05:56.360
<v Speaker 1>so fast, getting a ping on your phone might just

0:05:56.440 --> 0:05:59.680
<v Speaker 1>help you avoid a problem spot that much quicker. It

0:05:59.720 --> 0:06:02.200
<v Speaker 1>would certainly just give you a better sense. And I

0:06:02.240 --> 0:06:05.800
<v Speaker 1>think the argument put forward here by the professor who's

0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:08.800
<v Speaker 1>sort of leading this at USC side of things, is

0:06:08.839 --> 0:06:11.880
<v Speaker 1>that there have been other methodologies put for so obviously

0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:15.120
<v Speaker 1>there's the manual method, which is just super slow and

0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:18.679
<v Speaker 1>requires a lot of resources. And obviously Google and Apple

0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:21.280
<v Speaker 1>are put forward sort of a bluetooth method. But you know,

0:06:21.360 --> 0:06:26.599
<v Speaker 1>when you rely on technology and the Bluetooth signals, then

0:06:26.600 --> 0:06:29.120
<v Speaker 1>you come up with other problems such as what if

0:06:29.120 --> 0:06:32.160
<v Speaker 1>your signal isn't working well? What if you are informing

0:06:32.240 --> 0:06:35.200
<v Speaker 1>people that they have been exposed to someone with it,

0:06:35.400 --> 0:06:37.320
<v Speaker 1>but they don't really know what to do, And we

0:06:37.320 --> 0:06:40.440
<v Speaker 1>don't even really know how effective that might be in

0:06:40.560 --> 0:06:43.800
<v Speaker 1>areas with tall buildings just where the signal might not

0:06:43.920 --> 0:06:47.400
<v Speaker 1>be great. Doesn't take into account whether people wearing masks

0:06:47.520 --> 0:06:50.039
<v Speaker 1>or not, because the idea is to keep it rather private,

0:06:50.440 --> 0:06:52.760
<v Speaker 1>um and to just have the technology do the work

0:06:52.760 --> 0:06:55.039
<v Speaker 1>and give you a heads up. And so they're sort

0:06:55.080 --> 0:06:59.160
<v Speaker 1>of trying to come up with a compromise between manual

0:06:59.400 --> 0:07:03.960
<v Speaker 1>tracing and simply just a bluetooth f y. I that

0:07:04.279 --> 0:07:07.000
<v Speaker 1>this professor worries would lead people to be sort of

0:07:07.080 --> 0:07:10.320
<v Speaker 1>alarmed continuously that they might have been exposed, not know

0:07:10.400 --> 0:07:13.240
<v Speaker 1>what to do, and then just be like, well, forget that,

0:07:13.320 --> 0:07:15.240
<v Speaker 1>there's nothing I can do. Anyways I might have been

0:07:15.280 --> 0:07:17.640
<v Speaker 1>I might not have been continue with my life. So

0:07:18.000 --> 0:07:20.400
<v Speaker 1>they're trying to come up with a compromise, if you will.

0:07:20.480 --> 0:07:22.920
<v Speaker 1>But there are concerns with all of the methods and

0:07:23.040 --> 0:07:26.280
<v Speaker 1>there's not any sort of perfect way to go about this.

0:07:26.560 --> 0:07:29.560
<v Speaker 1>Thus far, all the experts agree that contact tracing is

0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:32.800
<v Speaker 1>needed to help reopen all of our economies, and I

0:07:32.840 --> 0:07:36.240
<v Speaker 1>know states are already starting to train people in contact tracing.

0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:37.920
<v Speaker 1>So I'm sure we're going to be hearing a lot

0:07:37.960 --> 0:07:40.760
<v Speaker 1>more about this app once things start developing a little

0:07:40.800 --> 0:07:44.600
<v Speaker 1>bit more. Tammy Abdolah, Senior reporter at dot l A,

0:07:44.880 --> 0:07:47.760
<v Speaker 1>thank you very much for joining us. Thank you so much,

0:07:47.920 --> 0:07:52.480
<v Speaker 1>really appreciate it. I'm Moscar Ramirez and this has been

0:07:52.480 --> 0:07:56.640
<v Speaker 1>your daily coronavirus Upteve, don't forget effort today's big news stories.

0:07:56.640 --> 0:07:58.640
<v Speaker 1>You can check me out on the Daily Dive podcast

0:07:58.760 --> 0:08:01.720
<v Speaker 1>every Monday through Friday, so follow us on iHeart Radio

0:08:02.000 --> 0:08:03.560
<v Speaker 1>or wherever you get your podcasts