{"id":49172,"date":"2023-04-24T14:09:14","date_gmt":"2023-04-24T21:09:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/?p=49172"},"modified":"2023-04-24T14:09:14","modified_gmt":"2023-04-24T21:09:14","slug":"one-less-tool-to-protect-ourselves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2023\/04\/24\/one-less-tool-to-protect-ourselves\/","title":{"rendered":"One Less Tool To Protect Ourselves"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:1250,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.kentreporter.com\\\/news\\\/washingtons-covid-19-exposure-notification-app-to-end-may-11&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20251009072937\\\/https:\\\/\\\/www.kentreporter.com\\\/news\\\/washingtons-covid-19-exposure-notification-app-to-end-may-11\\\/&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.kentreporter.com\\\/2023\\\/04\\\/24\\\/washingtons-covid-19-exposure-notification-app-to-end-may-11\\\/&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-10 18:35:41&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-10 18:35:41&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/news\/washingtons-covid-19-exposure-notification-app-to-end-may-11\/\">Washington\u2019s COVID-19 exposure notification app to end May 11<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  Washington\u2019s COVID-19 exposure notification app is scheduled to conclude May 11 in tandem with the end of the Public Health Emergency.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Sigh.<\/p>\n<p>Admittedly, I have no idea what the backend costs (monetary, time, employee hours, etc.) for this system have been. It&#8217;s (theoretically) possible that things have slowed down enough that the cost\/benefit ratio has shifted. But it still feels like one more sign that we&#8217;ve just\u2026given up.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  Since its launch in November 2020, approximately 235,000 participants confirmed a positive test result in WA Notify. This \u201csuccessful, lifesaving,\u201d app, as the state describes it, has generated more than 2.5 million anonymous exposure notifications, preventing tens of thousands of COVID-19 cases.<\/p>\n<p>  Washington was one of the first states to implement exposure notification technology and consistently had one of the lowest COVID-19 death rates in the country, despite also being host to the earliest known domestic case of the virus.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Boy, all of that sure sounds like something you&#8217;d want to keep going, doesn&#8217;t it?<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  After May 11, DOH encourages people who test positive for COVID-19 to tell their close contacts that may have been exposed to the virus.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Which I&#8217;d expect most (responsible) people have been doing already, but this takes out a key way of letting me know if I&#8217;ve been around someone who tested positive but who isn&#8217;t a close contact.<\/p>\n<p>Few, if any, places bother checking or requiring vaccines anymore. Masking exists somewhere between &#8220;encouraged&#8221; (if you&#8217;re lucky) and &#8220;tolerated&#8221;. And now this. Just one more step.<\/p>\n<p>And the worst part is that if we&#8217;d handled all of this better over the past few years, I might be able to look on these shifts as positive signs that things were actually improving. But I just don&#8217;t have that level of trust in our public health institutions anymore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If we&#8217;d handled all of this better over the past few years, these might be positive signs that things were actually improving. But I just don&#8217;t have that level of trust in our public health institutions anymore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2043],"tags":[3955,3764,5683],"class_list":["post-49172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal","tag-covid","tag-pandemic","tag-wa-notify"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49172\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}