What is Contact Tracing? Here’s What You Need to Know

 As the threat of COVID-19 infections fades, contact tracing will become increasingly important in assisting nations, countries, and enterprises in reopening. Many people, however, are unclear about what contact tracing includes and the privacy consequences of having their interactions with others recorded.

Everbridge Chief Technology Officer Imad Mouline clarified some common myths about the process and outlined the fundamental capabilities that a comprehensive contact tracing system should have in a presentation at "Coronavirus: The Road to Recovery," a virtual symposium hosted by Everbridge late last month.

A young man at a workplace has a briefcase and a medical mask on his hand.

Touch tracing is a collection of strategies and systems that allow people and organisations to document and alert others who have come into contact with anything that might infect them. Because interaction is banned by fiat during total lockdowns, the procedure is rarely used. However, once the reopening process begins and the focus switches to targeted detention of small groups of individuals, it will be vital.

Any contact tracing system's primary goal is to identify possible exposures and alert those who need to be informed. A more comprehensive strategy includes preventative measures and information to help individuals detect symptoms, report test findings, and respond properly.

Manual tracing and proximity tracking utilising mobile applications are the two contact tracing approaches that have gotten the most attention. The manual technique, which is being piloted on a small scale in New York City, hires individuals to phone newly diagnosed patients' contacts, alert them that they are at risk, provide advise on how to proceed, and follow up until they are no longer in danger. The manual technique, as New York has discovered, is "slow, expensive, time-consuming, and certainly not suited for every vertical and industry," according to Mouline.

Mobile proximity tracking records connections between users who have appropriate apps installed on their phones. Many automated solutions have been created, but the framework developed jointly by Google and Apple is the most likely to be widely used. It logs each occurrence in which two persons pass within a certain distance of each other using Bluetooth low energy technology. Each person's phone exchanges an anonymous code that may be used to alert the user if someone they've been in contact with tests positive.

The Google/Apple solution is made up of a platform and a set of APIs that governments and organisations may use to tailor a derivative app to their own requirements. Several European nations, as well as several US states, are already testing apps based on the architecture, although it is unclear whether it will become a worldwide standard.

Proximity Tracing's Limitations

While app-based anonymous proximity tracing has a lot of potential, the fact that people have to opt in to use it and the built-in privacy features make it unsuitable for situations where people's identities must be known, which is often the case in scenarios like a business complex or a school campus, according to Mouline. "The emphasis on individual privacy is admirable, but there are limited insights for public health, and most of you will never have access to them," he added.

Two additional techniques to contact tracing have gotten less attention, although they offer their own set of advantages.

"Can exploit location data that an organisation normally already gathers, although for different purposes," Mouline said of location-based tracing. Passive data gathering sources include phone SIM cards, GPS signals, Wi-Fi location tracking, and temperature measurements, as well as badge swipes and meeting calendars.

Even if they didn't directly touch an infected individual, location-based tracking allows critical event managers to identify persons who may have gone through an area. That's important in the case of the coronavirus, because it's thought that infections may spread through surfaces and lingering water droplets in the air.

If a person tests positive, the system can retrace their steps and identify other people who may have been present. "They can even be set up to send messages to persons who were previously in an area if an infection was identified after they departed," Mouline explained. Location-based tracing has the advantage of not requiring consumers to take any action, such as installing an app.

Area monitoring is a preventative strategy that ensures physical separation by enforcing area density and capacity limitations. Sensor data such as temperature, ventilation, and humidity readings can be used to detect individuals with excessive temperatures or to signal that too many people are congregated in one spot. This information may be used by public health officials, human resources departments, and facility management to detect possible risk zones and take action to prevent spread. Temperature readings from thermal cameras connected to access control systems as part of a critical event management solution, for example, can refuse admission to an office building to anyone with a fever and instead give them a health alert.

There is no single solution.

Each tracing approach has advantages and disadvantages, but none of them is 100 percent successful. "What's needed is numerous ways working together so you can triangulate," Moline added.

That's exactly what Everbridge's contract tracing technology, which is part of its Return to Work solution, accomplishes. It combines proximity and position tracing with real-time risk information based on 22,000 data sources across 175 countries and the usage of sensor data from building systems, thanks to more than 225 built-in interfaces. The app also has GPS and indoor navigation features to alert users when they're about to enter a hotspot and to assist them in navigating big interior venues such as hospitals and corporate offices where GPS signals aren't accessible.