theintercept--2020-04-02--Coronavirus Started in China, but Europe Became the Hub for Its Global Spread

began to spread , Mongolia took sensible precautions .
It halted border crossings from China , with which it shares a 2,877-mile border .
Mongolia also imposed travel bans on people from South Korea and Japan , the other epicenters of the pandemic at the time .
Yet the virus nonetheless found its way to Mongolia , where the first infected person — known as the “ index case ” — was a Frenchman who had come to the country from France via Moscow .
The story is the same for many other countries that became part of the pandemic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Europe .
South Africa ’ s first coronavirus cases had gone to northern Italy for a skiing trip .
South America ’ s first case was a Brazilian who had traveled to Italy ’ s Lombardy region , and Bangladesh ’ s first cases were Bangladeshis who had also come from Italy .
Panama ’ s index case was imported from Spain , and Nigeria ’ s first experience with coronavirus was an Italian business traveler .
Jordan ’ s was imported from Italy .
As Covid-19 cripples the U.S. and ravages many @ @ @ @ @ @ @ battling to craft a narrative of who is to blame for its damage .
The virus started in China , of course , but narratives of how it went from epidemic to global pandemic often leave out a crucial element : the role of Europe .
European countries have been hit much harder than Asian nations and have spread the virus significantly more than other regions .
The Intercept went through news reports of Covid-19 index cases across the world , and the results were startling .
Travel from and within Europe preceded @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 93 countries across all five continents , accounting for more than half of the world ’ s index cases .
Travel from Italy alone preceded index cases in at least 46 countries , compared to 27 countries associated with travel from China .
One of the reasons European travel facilitated the spread of the coronavirus was because those countries were late to close air links .
Italy closed one terminal of Milan ’ s main airport on March 16 , when the northern region of Lombardy already had 3,760 cases in a population @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , China had shut down flights out of Hubei province on January 23 , when there were 500 reported cases worldwide and 17 deaths in Hubei among a population of 58 million .
London ’ s Heathrow and Paris ’ s Charles De Gaulle airports are still open as cases soar in both of those cities , while Spain ’ s air operators only closed major terminals in Madrid and Barcelona when air traffic had ground to a halt anyway .
The media has paid relatively little attention to the role of Europe @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s spread .
A popular New York Times data graphic , for example , tracks the spread of the virus but stops mapping the spread when China is no longer its main exporter .
Other reports target China more bluntly , like a widely shared article in The Atlantic that stated , “ Is this a time for blame ?
Yes , it is.
” To an extent , this makes sense : The outbreak began in Wuhan , China ’ s ninth most populous city , and Chinese authorities covered up its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ China infected major countries like South Korea , Italy , Russia , Germany , India , and the U.S .
But as China , South Korea , Taiwan , and Hong Kong were stabilizing their coronavirus rates through a combination of massive testing , rigorous contact tracing , and strict lockdown measures , infections in European countries were shooting up .
Despite witnessing the devastation in China , and the rapid response put in place by its neighbors , European countries were flatfooted as the virus spread rapidly from Milan , Paris , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Latin America , and its European neighbors .
“ Did European countries ask for advice from Asian ones ?
I don ’ t think so , ” said Dr. François Dabis , director of the Agency for Research on AIDS and Hepatitis in Bordeaux , France .
“ We saw the reactions of Asian countries , but at the time we didn ’ t think they would be a model because we didn ’ t believe we would have the same epidemic.
” European public health officials were initially modeling their responses to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which was more locally contained in Asia , he added .
Many East Asian countries built up their screening and contact tracing capacity after SARS , though South Korea had learned its key lessons from its experience with the MERS outbreak in 2015 , when testing production was delayed by regulations .
Due to that , South Korea was ready to respond to the Covid-19 outbreak with fast and massive testing .
“ After 2015 , they changed the law to allow , in the event of a public health crisis or infectious @ @ @ @ @ @ @ much more rapidly approve and deploy new diagnostic tests , ” using the World Health Organization ’ s test as a model , said Dr. Claire Standley , researcher at Georgetown University ’ s Department of International Health .
The Food and Drug Administration , on the other hand , only allowed a specific Centers for Disease Control and Prevention test in the first few weeks , drastically damaging the U.S. ’ s ability to contain the pandemic .
Italy , France , Spain , and the U.K. all failed to scale up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a lack of logistical capacity to test , and in France we are still suffering because from this , ” Dabis explained .
Within Europe , only Germany has the industrial capacity to mass-produce Covid-19 tests on short notice , he said , adding that France “ didn ’ t source tests from Asia in large quantities.
” was considerable : Europe turned into a petri dish and travel from there impacted the world , with its most damaging effect in Africa and Latin America .
“ The colonial legacy lives in viral @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that Belgian travel preceded DRC ’ s first known case , ” said Dr. Adia Benton , an anthropologist at Northwestern University , referring to the Democratic Republic of Congo .
“ The ‘ knowing ’ is also a colonial symptom .
There may have very well been an earlier case , but we know about the traveler .
Their sickness registers.
” Senegal ’ s first case , for example , was imported from France , while the Gambia ’ s was the U.K. , Angola ’ s was from Portgual , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Netherlands .
On Facebook and in WhatsApp groups , some commentators have used the term “ coronized , ” a play off “ colonized , ” to describe this phenomenon .
In Africa in particular , the spread of Covid-19 hit the political class first because of their frequent travel abroad .
A single event in London attended by Prince Charles and Prince Albert II of Monaco , for example , created possible clusters in at least two African countries .
Even though Mozambique ’ s index case was officially confirmed on March @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it actually could have been Eneas Comich , the mayor of Maputo , the southern African nation ’ s capital .
Comich was likely infected when attending a WaterAid event on March 10 in London , where he sat at the same table as Prince Charles and Prince Albert , both of whom tested positive for Covid-19 shortly thereafter .
Prince Charles is pictured coughing into his hand at the event .
Burkina Faso ’ s water and sanitation minister , Niouga Ambroise Ouédraogo , attended the meeting as well and is suspected @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
He is one of seven infected ministers in Burkina Faso ’ s cabinet , severely hampering the government as it struggles to contain a rapidly growing outbreak there .
The pandemic ’ s epicenter has now moved to the U.S. and is likely to remain a devastating global problem for months and even years to come .
“ There ’ s going to need to be a global accountability for how we manage pandemics , ” said Standley .
“ I don ’ t think that it ’ s helpful at this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to advance nationalistic discourses , or to point fingers and assign blame .
But I think that there are opportunities to hold our systems and our governance accountable in terms of how they could have responded better.
” Dabis said that in the absence of a coherent strategy from WHO and the United Nations , Europeans had placed faith in their own institutions , but that faith was let down .
“ We thought maybe the political organizations that have cropped up over the past few years — the G7 , the G20 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ brought solutions , but we see clearly they haven ’ t had a single one , ” he said .
“ Every country does what it wants , when it wants .
There is no global vision .
”

When the coronavirus began to spread, Mongolia took sensible precautions. It halted border crossings from China, with which it shares a 2,877-mile border. Mongolia also imposed travel bans on people from South Korea and Japan, the other epicenters of the pandemic at the time. Yet the virus nonetheless found its way to Mongolia, where the first infected person — known as the “index case” — was a Frenchman who had come to the country from France via Moscow.
The story is the same for many other countries that became part of the pandemic due to infected people carrying it from Europe. South Africa’s first coronavirus cases had gone to northern Italy for a skiing trip. South America’s first case was a Brazilian who had traveled to Italy’s Lombardy region, and Bangladesh’s first cases were Bangladeshis who had also come from Italy. Panama’s index case was imported from Spain, and Nigeria’s first experience with coronavirus was an Italian business traveler. Jordan’s was imported from Italy.
As Covid-19 cripples the U.S. and ravages many countries in the world, politicians are battling to craft a narrative of who is to blame for its damage. The virus started in China, of course, but narratives of how it went from epidemic to global pandemic often leave out a crucial element: the role of Europe.
Photo: Emilio Morenatti/AP
European countries have been hit much harder than Asian nations and have spread the virus significantly more than other regions. The Intercept went through news reports of Covid-19 index cases across the world, and the results were startling. Travel from and within Europe preceded the first coronavirus cases in at least 93 countries across all five continents, accounting for more than half of the world’s index cases. Travel from Italy alone preceded index cases in at least 46 countries, compared to 27 countries associated with travel from China.
One of the reasons European travel facilitated the spread of the coronavirus was because those countries were late to close air links. Italy closed one terminal of Milan’s main airport on March 16, when the northern region of Lombardy already had 3,760 cases in a population of 10 million people. By contrast, China had shut down flights out of Hubei province on January 23, when there were 500 reported cases worldwide and 17 deaths in Hubei among a population of 58 million. London’s Heathrow and Paris’s Charles De Gaulle airports are still open as cases soar in both of those cities, while Spain’s air operators only closed major terminals in Madrid and Barcelona when air traffic had ground to a halt anyway.
The media has paid relatively little attention to the role of Europe as an accelerator of the virus’s spread. A popular New York Times data graphic, for example, tracks the spread of the virus but stops mapping the spread when China is no longer its main exporter. Other reports target China more bluntly, like a widely shared article in The Atlantic that stated, “Is this a time for blame? Yes, it is.”
To an extent, this makes sense: The outbreak began in Wuhan, China’s ninth most populous city, and Chinese authorities covered up its dangerous spread early on. Travel from China infected major countries like South Korea, Italy, Russia, Germany, India, and the U.S.
But as China, South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong were stabilizing their coronavirus rates through a combination of massive testing, rigorous contact tracing, and strict lockdown measures, infections in European countries were shooting up. Despite witnessing the devastation in China, and the rapid response put in place by its neighbors, European countries were flatfooted as the virus spread rapidly from Milan, Paris, and London to countries in Africa, Latin America, and its European neighbors.
“Did European countries ask for advice from Asian ones? I don’t think so,” said Dr. François Dabis, director of the Agency for Research on AIDS and Hepatitis in Bordeaux, France. “We saw the reactions of Asian countries, but at the time we didn’t think they would be a model because we didn’t believe we would have the same epidemic.” European public health officials were initially modeling their responses to coronavirus after the 2003 SARS epidemic, which was more locally contained in Asia, he added.
Many East Asian countries built up their screening and contact tracing capacity after SARS, though South Korea had learned its key lessons from its experience with the MERS outbreak in 2015, when testing production was delayed by regulations. Due to that, South Korea was ready to respond to the Covid-19 outbreak with fast and massive testing. “After 2015, they changed the law to allow, in the event of a public health crisis or infectious disease outbreak, that they could more much more rapidly approve and deploy new diagnostic tests,” using the World Health Organization’s test as a model, said Dr. Claire Standley, researcher at Georgetown University’s Department of International Health. The Food and Drug Administration, on the other hand, only allowed a specific Centers for Disease Control and Prevention test in the first few weeks, drastically damaging the U.S.’s ability to contain the pandemic.
Italy, France, Spain, and the U.K. all failed to scale up testing as well. “We had a lack of logistical capacity to test, and in France we are still suffering because from this,” Dabis explained. Within Europe, only Germany has the industrial capacity to mass-produce Covid-19 tests on short notice, he said, adding that France “didn’t source tests from Asia in large quantities.”
A municipal worker in full protective gear disinfects a market in the popular Medina neighborhood of Dakar, Senegal, on March 22, 2020. Photo: John Wessels/AFP via Getty Images
The result was considerable: Europe turned into a petri dish and travel from there impacted the world, with its most damaging effect in Africa and Latin America. “The colonial legacy lives in viral movements. I wasn’t surprised that Belgian travel preceded DRC’s first known case,” said Dr. Adia Benton, an anthropologist at Northwestern University, referring to the Democratic Republic of Congo. “The ‘knowing’ is also a colonial symptom. There may have very well been an earlier case, but we know about the traveler. Their sickness registers.” Senegal’s first case, for example, was imported from France, while the Gambia’s was the U.K., Angola’s was from Portgual, and Suriname’s was from the Netherlands. On Facebook and in WhatsApp groups, some commentators have used the term “coronized,” a play off “colonized,” to describe this phenomenon.
Read Our Complete Coverage The Coronavirus Crisis
In Africa in particular, the spread of Covid-19 hit the political class first because of their frequent travel abroad. A single event in London attended by Prince Charles and Prince Albert II of Monaco, for example, created possible clusters in at least two African countries. Even though Mozambique’s index case was officially confirmed on March 20, some journalists have speculated that it actually could have been Eneas Comich, the mayor of Maputo, the southern African nation’s capital. Comich was likely infected when attending a WaterAid event on March 10 in London, where he sat at the same table as Prince Charles and Prince Albert, both of whom tested positive for Covid-19 shortly thereafter. Prince Charles is pictured coughing into his hand at the event.
https://twitter.com/aprzhu/status/1246731910702936064
Burkina Faso’s water and sanitation minister, Niouga Ambroise Ouédraogo, attended the meeting as well and is suspected of having contracted the virus there too. He is one of seven infected ministers in Burkina Faso’s cabinet, severely hampering the government as it struggles to contain a rapidly growing outbreak there.
The pandemic’s epicenter has now moved to the U.S. and is likely to remain a devastating global problem for months and even years to come. “There’s going to need to be a global accountability for how we manage pandemics,” said Standley. “I don’t think that it’s helpful at this point in time to use the pandemic to advance nationalistic discourses, or to point fingers and assign blame. But I think that there are opportunities to hold our systems and our governance accountable in terms of how they could have responded better.”
Dabis said that in the absence of a coherent strategy from WHO and the United Nations, Europeans had placed faith in their own institutions, but that faith was let down. “We thought maybe the political organizations that have cropped up over the past few years — the G7, the G20, the European Commission — could have brought solutions, but we see clearly they haven’t had a single one,” he said. “Every country does what it wants, when it wants. There is no global vision.”


theintercept--2020-04-02--Trump Lies About Cutting White House Pandemic Team to Dodge (Checks Notes) Fox News

campaign rally disguised as a coronavirus task force briefing took a remarkable turn on Wednesday when he was stunned by a tough question from , of all people , John Roberts of Fox News .
Trump was sailing along , singing his own praises ( “ Did you know I was number one on Facebook ?
“ ) and denying any responsibility for the catastrophe when Roberts asked the president about the massive blunder of disbanding the White House pandemic preparedness team set up by his predecessor , former President Barack Obama .
Roberts raised the subject after Trump had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nonsensical , excuse of blaming Obama for his own administration ’ s abject failure to test Americans in sufficient numbers for the new coronavirus which emerged in China four months ago .
“ Remember this , we inherited — the word is we inherited — bad tests , ” Trump claimed , absurdly , of testing for a virus that did not exist when Obama left office three years ago .
“ We really inherited bad tests , these are horrible tests , ” Trump added , disavowing tests which were , in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Centers for Disease Control under the leadership of a director he appointed .
That led Roberts to observe that officials from the previous administration have blamed the federal government ’ s slow response to the Covid-19 outbreak on the fact that Trump ’ s White House dissolved the National Security Council directorate for global health security and biodefense , which was dedicated to preparing for pandemics , in 2018 .
“ You have talked about the failings of the Obama administration , in leaving you with empty shelves and no plans , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s false claims that he bears no responsibility for the poor state of the national stockpile of medical equipment he has overseen for three years .
“ They have said you got rid of the pandemic office in the National Security Council– ” he added , before being cut off by Trump .
“ We didn ’ t do that .
That turned out to be a false story , ” Trump claimed , falsely .
“ What are you , working for CNN ?
” the president asked sarcastically .
“ No @ @ @ @ @ @ @ replied , retreating quickly .
“ I ’ m pointing out what they have said , and what you have said , that ’ s all.
” “ I thought you were with Fox , ” Trump cut in .
“ But Fox isn ’ t so easy , either , don ’ t kid yourself , ” the president said , apparently forgetting that it is supposed to be a secret that the network ’ s role is to go easy on him and refrain from criticizing his months-long failure to prepare @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — “ It ’ s not about Fox or CNN ” — Trump cut him off again .
“ Look John , let me tell you something .
You know that ’ s a false story , ” the president insisted .
Trump appeared to be affronted that the Fox correspondent had not , like many of his supporters , simply accepted as an article of faith claims by a former national security staffer , Tim Morrison , who argued last month that even though the global health security team was , in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unit with a combined responsibility for arms control and biodefense was a perfectly adequate replacement .
“ What you just said is a false story , ” Trump said .
“ This doctor , ” he continued , gesturing to Dr. Anthony Fauci , the nation ’ s top infectious-diseases expert , “ knows it better than anybody.
” By suggesting that Fauci would back him up on his false claim that the office was not disbanded , Trump briefly skated onto some very thin ice .
In testimony to Congress just three @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by Rep. Gerald Connolly , a Virginia Democrat , if it had been a mistake “ to dismantle the office within the National Security Council charged with global health and security ?
” “ I wouldn ’ t necessarily characterize it as a mistake , ” Fauci answered , diplomatically .
“ I would say we worked very well with that office .
It would be nice if the office was still there.
” Before Roberts could call Trump ’ s bluff by asking Fauci to comment , the president scolded the correspondent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t be repeating a story that you know is false ” — and quickly ended the exchange by calling on another reporter to ask a question .
At that moment , Trump was on the ropes , vulnerable to having his lie exposed if the reporter he called on had simply followed up on the question from Roberts by asking Fauci to set the record straight .
But reporters in the White House briefing room are not known for that kind of cooperation , and Trump was let off the hook by a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ago , when Trump was asked at a previous briefing about cutting the pandemic preparedness team , he said he knew nothing about it , and claimed to have no idea if it had even happened .
His professed ignorance of such a major decision prompted speculation about whether he had even been consulted , and , if not , what role he plays inside his own administration .
In recent weeks , Trump has also professed ignorance about the looming threat of a global pandemic — saying repeatedly that no one could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In fact , the consequences of shuttering the pandemic office were clear to many observers at the time .
“ When the next pandemic occurs ( and make no mistake , it will ) and the federal government is unable to respond in a coordinated and effective fashion to protect the lives of US citizens and others , this decision by John Bolton and Donald Trump will be why , ” Stephen Schwartz of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists tweeted on May 10 , 2018 .
In testimony to Congress in 2018 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ experts had indeed imagined just such a thing .
“ When you have a respiratory virus that can be spread by droplets and aerosol and… there ’ s a degree of morbidity associated with that , you can have a catastrophe , ” Fauci testified .
“ The one that we always talk about is the 1918 pandemic , which killed between 50 and 100 million people , ” he added .
“ Influenza first , or something like influenza , is the one that keeps me up at night.
” While Fauci @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for his willingness to gently correct Trump on the science of the coronavirus response at the briefings , some observers have urged him to go much further .
Watching the daily briefing on Tuesday , the musician and actor Stevie Van Zandt erupted on Twitter when Fauci refused to criticize Trump for failing to urge governors of states that have not issued stay at home orders to do so .

Donald Trump’s latest campaign rally disguised as a coronavirus task force briefing took a remarkable turn on Wednesday when he was stunned by a tough question from, of all people, John Roberts of Fox News.
Trump was sailing along, singing his own praises (“Did you know I was number one on Facebook?“) and denying any responsibility for the catastrophe when Roberts asked the president about the massive blunder of disbanding the White House pandemic preparedness team set up by his predecessor, former President Barack Obama.
Roberts raised the subject after Trump had trotted out his now familiar, if nonsensical, excuse of blaming Obama for his own administration’s abject failure to test Americans in sufficient numbers for the new coronavirus which emerged in China four months ago.
“Remember this, we inherited — the word is we inherited — bad tests,” Trump claimed, absurdly, of testing for a virus that did not exist when Obama left office three years ago.
Trump is blaming Trump for bad Coronavirus tests. pic.twitter.com/2pUoqLo9Cf — Joel Gomez (@joelegomez) April 2, 2020
“We really inherited bad tests, these are horrible tests,” Trump added, disavowing tests which were, in fact, created in January by the Centers for Disease Control under the leadership of a director he appointed.
That led Roberts to observe that officials from the previous administration have blamed the federal government’s slow response to the Covid-19 outbreak on the fact that Trump’s White House dissolved the National Security Council directorate for global health security and biodefense, which was dedicated to preparing for pandemics, in 2018.
“You have talked about the failings of the Obama administration, in leaving you with empty shelves and no plans,” Roberts began, uncritically repeating Trump’s false claims that he bears no responsibility for the poor state of the national stockpile of medical equipment he has overseen for three years. “They have said you got rid of the pandemic office in the National Security Council –” he added, before being cut off by Trump.
“We didn’t do that. That turned out to be a false story,” Trump claimed, falsely. “What are you, working for CNN?” the president asked sarcastically.
Tonight John Roberts of FOX NEWS asked Trump about eliminating the pandemic team. Trump couldn’t handle it. pic.twitter.com/qdsc9xTcmA — Stop Cop City (@JoshuaPHilll) April 1, 2020
“No, no, no,” Roberts replied, retreating quickly. “I’m pointing out what they have said, and what you have said, that’s all.”
“I thought you were with Fox,” Trump cut in. “But Fox isn’t so easy, either, don’t kid yourself,” the president said, apparently forgetting that it is supposed to be a secret that the network’s role is to go easy on him and refrain from criticizing his months-long failure to prepare for the pandemic.
As Roberts objected — “It’s not about Fox or CNN” — Trump cut him off again. “Look John, let me tell you something. You know that’s a false story,” the president insisted.
Trump appeared to be affronted that the Fox correspondent had not, like many of his supporters, simply accepted as an article of faith claims by a former national security staffer, Tim Morrison, who argued last month that even though the global health security team was, in fact, disbanded, a new NSC unit with a combined responsibility for arms control and biodefense was a perfectly adequate replacement. Morrison, a Republican defense expert with a long record of undermining arms control agreements but no experience in public health, led the new counterproliferation team that was nominally charged with the very different job of preparing to respond to a pandemic.
“What you just said is a false story,” Trump said. “This doctor,” he continued, gesturing to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, “knows it better than anybody.”
By suggesting that Fauci would back him up on his false claim that the office was not disbanded, Trump briefly skated onto some very thin ice. In testimony to Congress just three weeks ago, the doctor was asked by Rep. Gerald Connolly, a Virginia Democrat, if it had been a mistake “to dismantle the office within the National Security Council charged with global health and security?”
Asked in March 11 it was a mistake to dismantle the NSC pandemic preparedness office, Dr. Fauci said: “I wouldn’t necessarily characterize it as a mistake. I would say we worked very well with that office. It would be nice if the office was still there.” pic.twitter.com/kwbhXlogv6 — Robert Mackey (@RobertMackey) April 2, 2020
“I wouldn’t necessarily characterize it as a mistake,” Fauci answered, diplomatically. “I would say we worked very well with that office. It would be nice if the office was still there.”
Connolly was one of at least five Democrats in Congress who had written to the White House in 2018 to sound the alarm about the downgrading of pandemic preparedness when the NSC office was shuttered and its director, Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer, was let go by the White House, just as the world was commemorating the 100th anniversary of the 1918 flu pandemic. “We fear these recent decisions will leave the United States vulnerable to pandemics and commit us to a strategy of triage should one occur,” Connolly and his colleague Rep. Ami Bera wrote to Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, at the time.
Rep. Elliot Engel also expressed his concerns publicly in a May 14, 2018 tweet, as the CNN reporter Andrew Kaczynski noted on Thursday. Sen. Sherrod Brown wrote to Trump four days later to demand that he put someone in charge of “preparing for the next pandemic threat.”
Not true, @realDonaldTrump. I wrote to you more than 600 days ago demanding answers after you fired the entire White House pandemic team. https://t.co/ICbHOkyeyY pic.twitter.com/71OF9gKA3N — Sherrod Brown (@SenSherrodBrown) March 13, 2020
That same day, Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Patty Murray wrote an urgent letter to Trump’s then-national security adviser, John Bolton, demanding a staff-level briefing on how planning for pandemic response would be carried out without the office. As Warren explained to David Corn of Mother Jones this week, Bolton refused to provide the briefing or to answer the six specific questions they asked in writing.
Hey, watch this video of my interview with @SenWarren, in which she recounts what happened in 2018 when she asked John Bolton and the Trump White House what they were doing to prepare for a global pandemic.pic.twitter.com/fXH7SxkoPt — David Corn (@DavidCornDC) April 2, 2020
Before Roberts could call Trump’s bluff by asking Fauci to comment, the president scolded the correspondent once more — “You shouldn’t be repeating a story that you know is false” — and quickly ended the exchange by calling on another reporter to ask a question.
At that moment, Trump was on the ropes, vulnerable to having his lie exposed if the reporter he called on had simply followed up on the question from Roberts by asking Fauci to set the record straight. But reporters in the White House briefing room are not known for that kind of cooperation, and Trump was let off the hook by a question on another topic.
Two weeks ago, when Trump was asked at a previous briefing about cutting the pandemic preparedness team, he said he knew nothing about it, and claimed to have no idea if it had even happened. His professed ignorance of such a major decision prompted speculation about whether he had even been consulted, and, if not, what role he plays inside his own administration.
In recent weeks, Trump has also professed ignorance about the looming threat of a global pandemic — saying repeatedly that no one could have imagined such a terrifying possibility. In fact, the consequences of shuttering the pandemic office were clear to many observers at the time. “When the next pandemic occurs (and make no mistake, it will) and the federal government is unable to respond in a coordinated and effective fashion to protect the lives of US citizens and others, this decision by John Bolton and Donald Trump will be why,” Stephen Schwartz of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists tweeted on May 10, 2018.
In testimony to Congress in 2018, Fauci said that he and other experts had indeed imagined just such a thing. “When you have a respiratory virus that can be spread by droplets and aerosol and… there’s a degree of morbidity associated with that, you can have a catastrophe,” Fauci testified. “The one that we always talk about is the 1918 pandemic, which killed between 50 and 100 million people,” he added. “Influenza first, or something like influenza, is the one that keeps me up at night.”
While Fauci has earned praise, and threats, for his willingness to gently correct Trump on the science of the coronavirus response at the briefings, some observers have urged him to go much further. Watching the daily briefing on Tuesday, the musician and actor Stevie Van Zandt erupted on Twitter when Fauci refused to criticize Trump for failing to urge governors of states that have not issued stay at home orders to do so.
I’m sorry but I’m sick of these motherfuckers who are supposed to be heroes pussying around with their fucking answers. Dr. Fauci was asked should every state be quarantining! Why can’t this fuck say YES! He goes into some bullshit about the guidelines! SAY YES MOTHERFUCKER! YES! — ????Stevie Van Zandt??? (@StevieVanZandt) April 1, 2020
On Thursday, Van Zandt clarified that he was disappointed in Fauci but also outraged that he has been receiving threats that prompted increased security for him. “Whoa! My criticism of Dr. Fauci for not speaking out more forcefully for a national quarantine is the opposite of the assholes that are now threatening his life! Let’s be clear. We love Dr. Fauci! He is the voice of reason and logic and sanity. We wish he could convince the Pres.” Van Zandt wrote. “It is despicable that Dr. Fauci is being threatened.”
Updated: Thursday, April 2, 1:57 p.m. EDT
This article was updated to add information about warnings five Democrats in Congress sent to the Trump White House in May, 2018 about the potential dangers of eliminating the pandemic preparedness office of the National Security Council. A new comment from Stevie Van Zandt on the threats to Dr. Anthony Fauci was also added.


theintercept--2020-04-02--Navy Dismisses Captain Who Sounded The Alarm on Coronavirus, Signaling A Willingness to Stifle Disse

Navy Dismisses Captain Who Sounded The Alarm on Coronavirus, Signaling A Willingness to Stifle Dissent

Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly on Thursday told reporters that Capt .
Brett Crozier was guilty of “ extremely poor judgment in the middle of a crisis , ” and said that due to his “ broad ” circulation of the memo outside his chain of command , he had failed to safeguard that it did not leak .
Crozier is no longer in command of the aircraft carrier , Modly said , though he is expected to keep his rank .
The U.S. Navy has taken the extraordinary step of relieving the captain of the U.S.S .
Theodore Roosevelt @ @ @ @ @ @ @ after he wrote a memo sounding the alarm on an exploding coronavirus infection on board the cramped quarters of his ship .
The dismissal of a senior officer for raising concerns about the well-being of his crew is highly unusual , and signals that the Trump administration is willing to take extraordinary steps to silence internal dissent about its handling of the global pandemic .
“ I could reach no other conclusion but that Capt .
Crozier had allowed the complexity of the challenge of the Covid breakout on the ship to overwhelm @ @ @ @ @ @ @ acting professionally was what was needed most at the time , ” Modly said .
Last week , the aircraft carrier — one of the Navy ’ s largest and most important ships — was ordered to port in Guam after five sailors tested positive for Covid-19 .
Modly told reporters at the time that only about half of the 4,800 person crew would disembark , and that a full evacuation was impossible due to the need to guard the ship .
On Monday , Crozier sent a memo to the Navy sounding @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the measure was insufficient to keep sailors on board the ship from dying .
The memo was obtained and published by the San Francisco Chronicle and quickly became national news .
“ With the exceptions of a handful of senior officer staterooms , none of the berthing onboard a warship is appropriate for quarantine or isolation , ” Crozier wrote .
“ We are not at war .
Sailors do not need to die .
If we do not act now , we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ figures released by the Department of Defense , confirmed Covid-19 cases in the military have more than tripled in the past week , from 280 last Thursday to 893 today .
In a press conference on Thursday , Modly said that the first time he read the letter was in the San Francisco Chronicle , remarking that it was Crozier ’ s “ hometown newspaper , ” though he said he had no information indicating that it was leaked by Crozier .
Modly also noted that Crozier ’ s commanding officer , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ strike group – was also on board the ship , “ just down the hall , ” and should have been notified about Crozier ’ s concerns before sending the letter .
“ It unnecessarily raised alarms with the families of our sailors and marines , with no plan to address those concerns , ” Modly said .
“ It raised concerns about the operational capabilities and operational security of that ship , that could have emboldened our adversaries to seek advantage , and it undermined the chain of command.
” Mandy Smithberger @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Defense Information at the Project on Government Oversight , called the firing “ outrageous , ” and said it sent the wrong signal about speaking up over concerns .
“ If he ’ s being fired for making sure his sailors received the care they needed I think this is a gigantic mistake by the Navy , ” Smithberger said .
“ We are hearing service members across the military think their commanders aren ’ t doing enough to protect them , and this sends a devastating signal that people who speak up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ House Armed Service Committee , including Chairman Adam Smith , D.-Wash. , released a joint statement Thursday expressing concern that the firing could have a “ chilling effect ” on others coming forward .
“ Throwing the commanding officer overboard without a thorough investigation is not going to solve the growing crisis aboard the U.S.S .
Theodore Roosevelt , ” the statement reads .
“ Dismissing a commanding officer for speaking out on issues critical to the safety of those under their command discourages others from raising similar concerns .
”

The U.S. Navy has taken the extraordinary step of relieving the captain of the U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt of his command over the aircraft carrier after he wrote a memo sounding the alarm on an exploding coronavirus infection on board the cramped quarters of his ship.
Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly on Thursday told reporters that Capt. Brett Crozier was guilty of “extremely poor judgment in the middle of a crisis,” and said that due to his “broad” circulation of the memo outside his chain of command, he had failed to safeguard that it did not leak. Crozier is no longer in command of the aircraft carrier, Modly said, though he is expected to keep his rank.
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“I could reach no other conclusion but that Capt. Crozier had allowed the complexity of the challenge of the Covid breakout on the ship to overwhelm his ability to act professionally, when acting professionally was what was needed most at the time,” Modly said.
The dismissal of a senior officer for raising concerns about the well-being of his crew is highly unusual, and signals that the Trump administration is willing to take extraordinary steps to silence internal dissent about its handling of the global pandemic.
Photo: U.S. Navy
Last week, the aircraft carrier — one of the Navy’s largest and most important ships — was ordered to port in Guam after five sailors tested positive for Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. Modly told reporters at the time that only about half of the 4,800-person crew would disembark, and that a full evacuation was impossible due to the need to guard the ship.
On Monday, Crozier sent a memo to the Navy sounding the alarm on the outbreak, saying that the measure was insufficient to keep sailors on board the ship from dying. The memo was obtained and published by the San Francisco Chronicle and quickly became national news.
“With the exceptions of a handful of senior officer staterooms, none of the berthing onboard a warship is appropriate for quarantine or isolation,” Crozier wrote. “We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die. If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset — our sailors.”
According to figures released by the Department of Defense, confirmed Covid-19 cases in the military have more than tripled in the past week, from 280 last Thursday to 893 this Thursday.
In a press conference on Thursday, Modly said that the first time he read the letter was in the San Francisco Chronicle, remarking that it was Crozier’s “hometown newspaper,” though he said he had no information indicating that Crozier leaked the memo.
Modly also noted that Crozier’s commanding officer, the rear admiral in command of the carrier strike group, was also on board the ship, “just down the hall,” and should have been notified about Crozier’s concerns before the letter was sent.
“It unnecessarily raised alarms with the families of our sailors and marines, with no plan to address those concerns,” Modly said. “It raised concerns about the operational capabilities and operational security of that ship that could have emboldened our adversaries to seek advantage, and it undermined the chain of command.”
Read Our Complete Coverage The Coronavirus Crisis
Mandy Smithberger, director of the Center for Defense Information at the Project on Government Oversight, called the firing “outrageous,” and said it sent the wrong signal about speaking up over concerns.
“If he’s being fired for making sure his sailors received the care they needed, I think this is a gigantic mistake by the Navy,” Smithberger said. “We are hearing service members across the military think their commanders aren’t doing enough to protect them, and this sends a devastating signal that people who speak up will be crushed.”
Democrats on the House Armed Service Committee, including Chair Adam Smith, D.-Wash., released a joint statement Thursday expressing concern that the firing could have a “chilling effect” on others coming forward. “Throwing the commanding officer overboard without a thorough investigation is not going to solve the growing crisis aboard the U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt,” the statement reads. “Dismissing a commanding officer for speaking out on issues critical to the safety of those under their command discourages others from raising similar concerns.”


theintercept--2020-04-02--With Fake Hand Sanitizer and 12 Ventilators, Afghanistan Expects Millions of Coronavirus Cases

on a highway outside the western Afghan city of Herat last week , minivans packed with migrant workers arrived from the Iranian border throughout the day .
The passengers were among more than 140,000 Afghans who had fled Iran ’ s deadly coronavirus outbreak and subsequent economic stagnation in March alone , part of what one international expert called the world ’ s largest cross-border migration since the pandemic began .
Most carried small suitcases filled with essentials : a blanket , a change of clothes , a sweater .
Whether they knew it or not , some also carried @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a bus station than a muddy verge along the highway .
Restaurants were open despite the city ’ s “ measured lockdown ” order , and their owners hawked traditional Afghan soup and piles of rice sweetened with raisins and shredded carrots .
While the returnees waited to depart for their home provinces , a white ambulance raced back and forth along the highway , ferrying coronavirus patients to the only hospital with an isolation unit in all of western Afghanistan .
More people died last year in Afghanistan ’ s war than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fighting , widespread poverty , and weak public health system have been conspiring against sick Afghans since well before the emergence of Covid-19 .
But the inevitable spread of the pandemic in Afghanistan could be catastrophic , health professionals here say .
In February , Afghanistan ’ s public health ministry designated the Afghan Japan Hospital in Kabul as the capital ’ s primary coronavirus treatment facility .
But there was a problem : The hand sanitizer procured by the ministry and distributed throughout the hospital was tested and found to have zero @ @ @ @ @ @ @ told The Intercept .
The gel wouldn ’ t have rubbed ink off a white board , much less disinfected the hands of the hundreds of staff and patients .
According to hospital staff , the sanitizer has since been disposed of and replaced by the World Health Organization .
A WHO spokesperson acknowledged the existence of “ inauthentic ” sanitizer .
There is also a startling shortage of coronavirus tests and ventilators .
WHO gave Afghanistan 1,500 testing kits , but only two laboratories in the country are equipped with machines that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ United Arab Emirates and China are donating tens of thousands of additional kits , said Dr. Wahid Majrooh , a senior adviser to the Afghan minister of public health .
There are also plans to expand the number of diagnostic laboratories from two to 12 .
As of April 2 , the country ’ s two designated coronavirus hospitals had only 12 working ventilators between them .
Four of those were at a hospital in Herat , but as of last week , none had been installed , Dr. Nasir Farhang , a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hospital , told The Intercept .
“ We don ’ t have any staff that know how to operate the ventilators or intubate [ patients ] , ” Farhang said .
The coronavirus pandemic couldn ’ t have hit Afghanistan at a worse time .
The country ’ s top two candidates in the September 2019 presidential election have both claimed victory and held separate inauguration ceremonies .
During a March 20 visit to Kabul , U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo failed to broker a resolution between Ashraf Ghani , whose election @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Dr. Abdullah Abdullah .
Days later , Pompeo announced that the State Department was cutting $ 1 billion in aid to Afghanistan this year .
The political impasse also threatens to undermine a February 29 agreement signed by U.S. and Taliban representatives in Qatar which many hoped would lead to the end of the 19-year war .
of about half a million , is tied to Iran by trade , culture , and as the port through which hundreds of thousands of Afghans pass annually , mostly young men heading to Iran @ @ @ @ @ @ @ put Herat , which now has nearly three quarters of the country ’ s 258 positive cases , at the center of Afghanistan ’ s coronavirus crisis .
Experts say that number represents only a fraction of the actual figure for infections .
A senior adviser to the Afghan Ministry of Health told The Intercept that based on patient data , 90 to 95 percent of Afghanistan ’ s positive cases are in people who have recently returned from Iran , where nearly 50,000 cases have been recorded so far .
The International @ @ @ @ @ @ @ million Afghans are in Iran at any given time .
The border has been a well-worn path for unskilled workers for decades .
In recent years , with unemployment at 30 percent in Afghanistan , the flow has quickened .
According to IOM , roughly 1,000 Afghan migrants per day were using the countries ’ two major border crossings with Iran — in Herat and Nimruz Provinces — to return home between January and March , when the number spiked .
One day last week , 31-year-old Zabihullah crossed into Afghanistan from Iran @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a laborer there .
After a two-hour minibus ride to the outskirts of Herat , he wove his way on foot through muddy puddles to another van that would carry him on to his home province of Faryab , where his expectations of finding work were minimal .
“ There is no solution , ” he said .
“ I ’ ll be lying down at home.
” In March , as thousands succumbed to the pandemic in Iran , worksites like Zabihullah ’ s closed down and more than 100,000 Afghan workers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ d never receive treatment in Iran if they became infected .
As many as 15,000 crossed on some days in March , according to IOM .
“ It ’ s the only place in the world with such massive cross-border returns during Covid , ” said Nick Bishop , who is heading IOM ’ s coronavirus response in Afghanistan .
Returns on such a scale would put tens of thousands of families under severe financial stress at the best of times .
Now , the returnees also threaten to upend Afghanistan ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ country into chaos unlike anything it ’ s seen in the past two decades of war .
“ Even before the global pandemic , humanitarian needs were immense due to decades of conflict [ and ] ongoing political instability , ” Linda Tom , of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Afghanistan , told The Intercept .
This year , she said , 9.4 million people — almost a quarter of Afghanistan ’ s population — are in need of humanitarian assistance .
make detecting and preventing the virus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ impossible .
Fear and misinformation deter those with symptoms from seeking treatment , and Afghan homes typically host large , multigenerational families , making calls for social distancing unrealistic .
At even greater risk are Afghanistan ’ s 4 million displaced people , who are too busy trying to survive poverty and upheaval to worry about a new virus .
The Shahrak-e-Sabz settlement on the outskirts of Herat is home to more than 10,000 families , most of whom built single-room mud-brick homes after fleeing fighting and drought in Badghis Province , to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a cold , wet afternoon last week , the virus was well down the list of residents ’ priorities .
After two days of rain , roofs were leaking or caving in , and solar-powered water pumps had stopped working under the cloudy skies .
Previously , several residents said , they had relied on humanitarian agencies for help in situations like this .
But those agencies are now overwhelmingly focused on the coronavirus .
Ghulam Sakhi , who runs a small store in the settlement , told The Intercept that nongovernmental organizations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them about the dangers of the pandemic .
They “ bring leaflets and say you must eat fruit for its Vitamin C , ” he said outside his store , which is in a shipping container .
“ But we don ’ t even have bread.
” Above the gently sloping hill where thousands of mud-brick homes make up the settlement sits the 150-bed pediatric hospital that has been declared the region ’ s primary coronavirus treatment facility .
Farhang , the recent graduate working at the hospital , told The Intercept last @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what was at the time a countrywide total of 71 were being treated at the facility .
A 45-year-old woman had died of the disease the night before , becoming the country ’ s second reported coronavirus death .
The lack of health workers trained to operate ventilators in Herat isn ’ t just the result of an overstretched system dealing with the coronavirus outbreak .
In 2018 , an international medical professional , who spoke on the condition of anonymity , discovered two brand-new ventilators in Herat Regional Hospital .
Both were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was being used .
A surgeon had covered them in a sheet to keep them clean and secure .
“ No one had been trained ” on how to use them , the foreign health worker told The Intercept , noting that such lack of preparation was “ typical.
” And it wasn ’ t just ventilators .
There were electric suction machines and cardiac monitors gathering dust because they were missing parts that weren ’ t available in Afghanistan , said the foreign health professional , who worked in the hospital at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was I remember so many people dying because of the lack of ventilator beds in ICU.
” WHO informed Afghanistan ’ s Ministry of Public Health about the likely spread of the coronavirus in January .
“ When we received notification of cases in Qom , [ Iran ] , we went to the zero point ” at the border , Dr. Mohammad Asef Kabir , Herat ’ s deputy health minister , told The Intercept .
Given the likelihood that the virus would cross into Herat with returning Afghans , the ministry @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and raising awareness about the need for good hygiene and social distancing .
Such messaging , especially among vulnerable communities and those returning from Iran , is vital , IOM ’ s Nick Bishop said .
“ Based on socioeconomic status and levels of education , it ’ s going to be incredibly difficult to convey those messages in a meaningful way in the coming weeks when you ’ re really going to see exponential growth in the case count and , potentially , in the number of people dying.
” for its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ instituting containment measures .
On March 25 , with just over 50 positive cases recorded in Herat , the province ’ s governor shuttered nonessential stores and businesses and banned public gatherings ; the same restrictions were imposed in Kabul a few days later .
Schools were ordered to remain closed after the winter holiday on March 14 in an initial effort to slow the spread of the virus .
But streets in the two cities now resemble a regular weekend , showing how difficult it will be to enforce wholesale behavioral change @ @ @ @ @ @ @ population lives hand-to-mouth and is resigned to the knowledge that each day may be their last .
As in China , Italy , Spain , and now the U.S. , health facilities in Afghanistan are being converted into coronavirus treatment centers in anticipation of an onslaught of cases in the coming months .
But the rollout has been plagued by staffing and equipment shortages which , if not resolved , will overwhelm the health system within weeks , according to local and international health professionals .
An online advertisement posted by the public @ @ @ @ @ @ @ physician job vacancies .
The Afghan Japan Hospital ’ s director , Dr. Atiqullah Kotay , said that staff will be required to work 24-hour shifts because of the transport disruptions wrought by the city ’ s partial lockdown .
Still , he said it shouldn ’ t be hard to hire more health care workers .
“ In Afghanistan , ” he said , “ there are many medical professionals , but few jobs.
” Afghanistan ’ s public health system “ is definitely … very weak , ” Médecins Sans Frontières @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Intercept .
“ It ’ s already a problem in normal times , but in the time of an epidemic , it will have a terrible impact.
” Some medical professionals and NGO workers have criticized WHO ’ s response .
“ Of course [ WHO ] always thinks that money is the answer , ” a leading international health expert based in Kabul , who spoke on the condition of anonymity , told The Intercept .
“ You can [ have ] all the money you want , but in the end @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , this person and others said , are human resources and supplies , which were becoming increasingly difficult to procure as air travel and borders shut down .
“ We expected more , ” Majrooh , the adviser to the minister of public health , told The Intercept .
WHO ’ s Amadullah Amarkhil said a massive amount of long-term support will be required .
“ WHO is closely working with [ the Ministry of Public Health ] and assisting the Health Sector and its Partners since early January regarding COVID-19 on preparedness @ @ @ @ @ @ @ key areas , ” he said in an email .
Early one morning last week , a small queue of patients waited for a prediagnosis consultation in an outdoor area near the Herat Regional Hospital ’ s laboratory .
The doctor , who wore a head-to-toe protective suit , was assisted by Mohammad Shafi Khotibi , a local nurse .
On average , Khotibi explained , medical staff hold such consultations with about 100 patients daily , about 50 of whom are asked to give nose and throat swab samples for testing .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the health ministry , but the process isn ’ t seamless .
“ Every time it runs out , ” said Khotibi , “ there is a gap of several hours.
” ( At the time of publication , according to the ministry , 1,807 tests had been performed nationwide . )
The relatively small number of available tests “ gives no chance for health actors to understand the gravity of the situation , ” Raickman said .
Since humanitarian aid is directly linked to the number of proven cases , having such @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the supply of resources won ’ t match the demand .
“ It ’ s one of the biggest challenges we ’ ll ever see , ” Raickman said .
“ When you see the support we ’ re receiving from Europe , it ’ s not the kind of support we received for Ebola in Congo because the people who are supposed to support you — they ’ re sick themselves.
” Dwain Hendriksen , who is leading the Covid-19 response for World Vision Afghanistan , concurred .
“ We ’ re @ @ @ @ @ @ @ donor funding , ” he said , “ but nothing like what we will need when the spike in Covid-19 cases increases over the next few weeks , ” assuming better and more frequent testing begins to show the true scale of the problem .
On March 25 , Afghan Minister of Public Health Ferozuddin Feroz announced that according to its estimates , 80 percent of Afghans — approximately 25 million people — may contract the coronavirus .
Raickman had just heard those figures when he spoke to The Intercept .
In Italy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ almost 10 percent mortality ; it ’ s impossible to consider that Afghanistan will be less than this.
” He sounded downcast .
“ So yeah , you just do the maths .
It could be a really huge catastrophe .
”

At a bus interchange on a highway outside the western Afghan city of Herat last week, minivans packed with migrant workers arrived from the Iranian border throughout the day. The passengers were among more than 140,000 Afghans who had fled Iran’s deadly coronavirus outbreak and subsequent economic stagnation in March alone, part of what one international expert called the world’s largest cross-border migration since the pandemic began.
Most carried small suitcases filled with essentials: a blanket, a change of clothes, a sweater. Whether they knew it or not, some also carried the coronavirus.
The interchange was less a bus station than a muddy verge along the highway. Restaurants were open despite the city’s “measured lockdown” order, and their owners hawked traditional Afghan soup and piles of rice sweetened with raisins and shredded carrots. While the returnees waited to depart for their home provinces, a white ambulance raced back and forth along the highway, ferrying coronavirus patients to the only hospital with an isolation unit in all of western Afghanistan.
More people died last year in Afghanistan’s war than in any other conflict. The ongoing fighting, widespread poverty, and weak public health system have been conspiring against sick Afghans since well before the emergence of Covid-19. But the inevitable spread of the pandemic in Afghanistan could be catastrophic, health professionals here say.
Left/Top: Men gather to rest after crossing the border from Iran into Afghanistan at Islam Qala in Herat, before taking a minibus to their home province of Faryab on March 25, 2020. Right/Bottom: At the Islam Qala border crossing, nurses screen for high temperatures as Afghans — many of whom are migrant workers — return from Iran. Photos: Andrew Quilty for The Intercept
In February, Afghanistan’s public health ministry designated the Afghan Japan Hospital in Kabul as the capital’s primary coronavirus treatment facility. But there was a problem: The hand sanitizer procured by the ministry and distributed throughout the hospital was tested and found to have zero alcohol content, two hospital staff members told The Intercept. The gel wouldn’t have rubbed ink off a white board, much less disinfected the hands of the hundreds of staff and patients. According to hospital staff, the sanitizer has since been disposed of and replaced by the World Health Organization. A WHO spokesperson acknowledged the existence of “inauthentic” sanitizer.
There is also a startling shortage of coronavirus tests and ventilators. WHO gave Afghanistan 1,500 testing kits, but only two laboratories in the country are equipped with machines that can process the test samples. The United Arab Emirates and China are donating tens of thousands of additional kits, said Dr. Wahid Majrooh, a senior adviser to the Afghan minister of public health. There are also plans to expand the number of diagnostic laboratories from two to 12.
As of April 2, the country’s two designated coronavirus hospitals had only 12 working ventilators between them. Four of those were at a hospital in Herat, but as of last week, none had been installed, Dr. Nasir Farhang, a newly graduated medical doctor working at the hospital, told The Intercept. “We don’t have any staff that know how to operate the ventilators or intubate [patients],” Farhang said.
The coronavirus pandemic couldn’t have hit Afghanistan at a worse time. The country’s top two candidates in the September 2019 presidential election have both claimed victory and held separate inauguration ceremonies. During a March 20 visit to Kabul, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo failed to broker a resolution between Ashraf Ghani, whose election victory was recognized by the U.S., and Dr. Abdullah Abdullah. Days later, Pompeo announced that the State Department was cutting $1 billion in aid to Afghanistan this year. The political impasse also threatens to undermine a February 29 agreement signed by U.S. and Taliban representatives in Qatar which many hoped would lead to the end of the 19-year war.
Herat, a city of about half a million, is tied to Iran by trade, culture, and as the port through which hundreds of thousands of Afghans pass annually, mostly young men heading to Iran to find work. That relationship has put Herat, which now has nearly three quarters of the country’s 258 positive cases, at the center of Afghanistan’s coronavirus crisis. Experts say that number represents only a fraction of the actual figure for infections. A senior adviser to the Afghan Ministry of Health told The Intercept that based on patient data, 90 to 95 percent of Afghanistan’s positive cases are in people who have recently returned from Iran, where nearly 50,000 cases have been recorded so far.
The International Organization for Migration estimates that around 2.4 million Afghans are in Iran at any given time. The border has been a well-worn path for unskilled workers for decades. In recent years, with unemployment at 30 percent in Afghanistan, the flow has quickened. According to IOM, roughly 1,000 Afghan migrants per day were using the countries’ two major border crossings with Iran — in Herat and Nimruz Provinces — to return home between January and March, when the number spiked.
Travelers gather their belongings after crossing the border from Iran into Afghanistan at Islam Qala. Photo: Andrew Quilty for The Intercept
One day last week, 31-year-old Zabihullah crossed into Afghanistan from Iran on foot after several months working as a laborer there. After a two-hour minibus ride to the outskirts of Herat, he wove his way on foot through muddy puddles to another van that would carry him on to his home province of Faryab, where his expectations of finding work were minimal. “There is no solution,” he said. “I’ll be lying down at home.”
In March, as thousands succumbed to the pandemic in Iran, worksites like Zabihullah’s closed down and more than 100,000 Afghan workers began returning home, knowing they’d never receive treatment in Iran if they became infected. As many as 15,000 crossed on some days in March, according to IOM. “It’s the only place in the world with such massive cross-border returns during Covid,” said Nick Bishop, who is heading IOM’s coronavirus response in Afghanistan.
Returns on such a scale would put tens of thousands of families under severe financial stress at the best of times. Now, the returnees also threaten to upend Afghanistan’s fragile health care system and thrust the country into chaos unlike anything it’s seen in the past two decades of war.
“Even before the global pandemic, humanitarian needs were immense due to decades of conflict [and] ongoing political instability,” Linda Tom, of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Afghanistan, told The Intercept. This year, she said, 9.4 million people — almost a quarter of Afghanistan’s population — are in need of humanitarian assistance.
The Shahrak-e-Sabz informal settlement is home to more than 10,000 displaced families, mostly from Badghis Province to the north, who arrived after fleeing drought and conflict in 2018. Photo: Andrew Quilty for The Intercept
Afghanistan’s porous borders make detecting and preventing the virus’s spread from neighboring countries virtually impossible. Fear and misinformation deter those with symptoms from seeking treatment, and Afghan homes typically host large, multigenerational families, making calls for social distancing unrealistic. At even greater risk are Afghanistan’s 4 million displaced people, who are too busy trying to survive poverty and upheaval to worry about a new virus.
The Shahrak-e-Sabz settlement on the outskirts of Herat is home to more than 10,000 families, most of whom built single-room mud-brick homes after fleeing fighting and drought in Badghis Province, to the north, in 2018. On a cold, wet afternoon last week, the virus was well down the list of residents’ priorities. After two days of rain, roofs were leaking or caving in, and solar-powered water pumps had stopped working under the cloudy skies. Previously, several residents said, they had relied on humanitarian agencies for help in situations like this. But those agencies are now overwhelmingly focused on the coronavirus.
Ghulam Sakhi, who runs a small store in the settlement, told The Intercept that nongovernmental organizations had come to the camp to inform them about the dangers of the pandemic. They “bring leaflets and say you must eat fruit for its Vitamin C,” he said outside his store, which is in a shipping container. “But we don’t even have bread.”
Left/Top: A shopkeeper closes up his store at dusk in the small bazaar inside the Shahrak-e Sabz IDP camp. Right/Bottom: Dawa Jan with his son Hazrat, 4 months, in their home at the Shahrak-e Sabz IDP camp, where they live with five other family members. Photos: Andrew Quilty for The Intercept
Above the gently sloping hill where thousands of mud-brick homes make up the settlement sits the 150-bed pediatric hospital that has been declared the region’s primary coronavirus treatment facility. Farhang, the recent graduate working at the hospital, told The Intercept last week that 56 Covid-19 patients out of what was at the time a countrywide total of 71 were being treated at the facility. A 45-year-old woman had died of the disease the night before, becoming the country’s second reported coronavirus death.
The lack of health workers trained to operate ventilators in Herat isn’t just the result of an overstretched system dealing with the coronavirus outbreak. In 2018, an international medical professional, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, discovered two brand-new ventilators in Herat Regional Hospital. Both were emblazoned with large WHO stickers; neither was being used. A surgeon had covered them in a sheet to keep them clean and secure.
“No one had been trained” on how to use them, the foreign health worker told The Intercept, noting that such lack of preparation was “typical.” And it wasn’t just ventilators. There were electric suction machines and cardiac monitors gathering dust because they were missing parts that weren’t available in Afghanistan, said the foreign health professional, who worked in the hospital at the time. “The crazy thing was I remember so many people dying because of the lack of ventilator beds in ICU.”
Read Our Complete Coverage The Coronavirus Crisis
WHO informed Afghanistan’s Ministry of Public Health about the likely spread of the coronavirus in January. “When we received notification of cases in Qom, [Iran], we went to the zero point” at the border, Dr. Mohammad Asef Kabir, Herat’s deputy health minister, told The Intercept. Given the likelihood that the virus would cross into Herat with returning Afghans, the ministry’s initial efforts focused on detection and raising awareness about the need for good hygiene and social distancing.
Such messaging, especially among vulnerable communities and those returning from Iran, is vital, IOM’s Nick Bishop said. “Based on socioeconomic status and levels of education, it’s going to be incredibly difficult to convey those messages in a meaningful way in the coming weeks when you’re really going to see exponential growth in the case count and, potentially, in the number of people dying.”
An ambulance departs a pediatric hospital that was recently repurposed as Herat’s primary coronavirus isolation facility in the early days of the outbreak in Afghanistan. Photo: Andrew Quilty for The Intercept
The Afghan government, for its part, has been comparatively aggressive in instituting containment measures. On March 25, with just over 50 positive cases recorded in Herat, the province’s governor shuttered nonessential stores and businesses and banned public gatherings; the same restrictions were imposed in Kabul a few days later. Schools were ordered to remain closed after the winter holiday on March 14 in an initial effort to slow the spread of the virus. But streets in the two cities now resemble a regular weekend, showing how difficult it will be to enforce wholesale behavioral change in a country where much of the population lives hand-to-mouth and is resigned to the knowledge that each day may be their last.
As in China, Italy, Spain, and now the U.S., health facilities in Afghanistan are being converted into coronavirus treatment centers in anticipation of an onslaught of cases in the coming months. But the rollout has been plagued by staffing and equipment shortages which, if not resolved, will overwhelm the health system within weeks, according to local and international health professionals. An online advertisement posted by the public health ministry on March 29 listed 40 physician job vacancies. The Afghan Japan Hospital’s director, Dr. Atiqullah Kotay, said that staff will be required to work 24-hour shifts because of the transport disruptions wrought by the city’s partial lockdown. Still, he said it shouldn’t be hard to hire more health care workers. “In Afghanistan,” he said, “there are many medical professionals, but few jobs.”
Afghanistan’s public health system “is definitely … very weak,” Médecins Sans Frontières Afghanistan Country Representative Julien Raickman told The Intercept. “It’s already a problem in normal times, but in the time of an epidemic, it will have a terrible impact.”
Photo: Andrew Quilty for The Intercept
Some medical professionals and NGO workers have criticized WHO’s response. “Of course [WHO] always thinks that money is the answer,” a leading international health expert based in Kabul, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told The Intercept. “You can [have] all the money you want, but in the end, what for?” More important, this person and others said, are human resources and supplies, which were becoming increasingly difficult to procure as air travel and borders shut down.
“We expected more,” Majrooh, the adviser to the minister of public health, told The Intercept.
WHO’s Amadullah Amarkhil said a massive amount of long-term support will be required. “WHO is closely working with [the Ministry of Public Health] and assisting the Health Sector and its Partners since early January regarding COVID-19 on preparedness and has massively expanded its assistance in key areas,” he said in an email.
Early one morning last week, a small queue of patients waited for a prediagnosis consultation in an outdoor area near the Herat Regional Hospital’s laboratory. The doctor, who wore a head-to-toe protective suit, was assisted by Mohammad Shafi Khotibi, a local nurse. On average, Khotibi explained, medical staff hold such consultations with about 100 patients daily, about 50 of whom are asked to give nose and throat swab samples for testing. The sampling kits are regularly replenished by the health ministry, but the process isn’t seamless. “Every time it runs out,” said Khotibi, “there is a gap of several hours.” (At the time of publication, according to the ministry, 1,807 tests had been performed nationwide.)
Left/Top: A patient is assessed for coronavirus symptoms in a consultation with a doctor, in white, and nurse Mohammad Shafi Khotibi, in green, outside Herat Regional Hospital's laboratory. Right/Bottom: People line up for a consultation with a doctor outside Herat Regional Hospital's laboratory, where samples from suspected coronavirus carriers are analyzed. Photos: Andrew Quilty for The Intercept
The relatively small number of available tests “gives no chance for health actors to understand the gravity of the situation,” Raickman said. Since humanitarian aid is directly linked to the number of proven cases, having such a low number of confirmed cases means the supply of resources won’t match the demand.
“It’s one of the biggest challenges we’ll ever see,” Raickman said. “When you see the support we’re receiving from Europe, it’s not the kind of support we received for Ebola in Congo because the people who are supposed to support you — they’re sick themselves.”
Dwain Hendriksen, who is leading the Covid-19 response for World Vision Afghanistan, concurred. “We’re still able to access a bit of donor funding,” he said, “but nothing like what we will need when the spike in Covid-19 cases increases over the next few weeks,” assuming better and more frequent testing begins to show the true scale of the problem.
On March 25, Afghan Minister of Public Health Ferozuddin Feroz announced that according to its estimates, 80 percent of Afghans — approximately 25 million people — may contract the coronavirus.
Raickman had just heard those figures when he spoke to The Intercept. In Italy, he said, “they have almost 10 percent mortality; it’s impossible to consider that Afghanistan will be less than this.” He sounded downcast. “So yeah, you just do the maths. It could be a really huge catastrophe.”


theintercept--2020-04-02--Privacy Experts Say Responsible Coronavirus Surveillance Is Possible

than a decade , whistleblowers like the NSA ’ s Edward Snowden and Cambridge Analytica ’ s Christopher Wylie helped spur a global sea change in the public ’ s attitude toward privacy and global data dragnets .
We may now be in the midst of another seismic moment in the history of digital privacy : Mass surveillance methods could save lives around the world , permitting authorities to track and curb the spread of the novel coronavirus with speed and accuracy not possible during prior pandemics .
It ’ s an extraordinary moment that might call for extraordinary surveillance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Intercept that our ongoing public health crisis doesn ’ t have to mean creating a civil liberties crisis in turn .
The coronavirus tracking ramp-up is already well underway around the world .
In South Korea , Taiwan , and Israel , authorities use smartphone location data to enforce individual quarantines .
Moscow police say they ’ ve already busted 200 quarantine violators caught via facial recognition-enabled cameras .
NSA contractor and perennial privacy offender Palantir is helping Britain ’ s National Health Service track infections .
Apps that leverage a smartphone ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sensors to enforce social distancing or map the movements of the infected have been deployed in Singapore , Poland , and Kenya ; MIT researchers are now pitching a similar , but more “ privacy friendly , ” app .
In Mexico , Uber sent government authorities rider data to trace the route of an infected tourist , also banning 240 users who ’ d taken rides with the same driver .
In the U.S. , public health officials , hoping to assess broad compliance with stay-at-home orders and to spot dangerous crowding @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bulk from loosely-regulated online advertisers , and have discussed obtaining it from Google , according to news reports .
A maker of “ smart ” thermometers , Kinsa Health , set up a special website to provide access to geographical fever clusters and other data uploaded from the hundreds of thousands of homes that use its app-enabled devices , earning Kinsa some buzz , including a recent New York Times article in which public health experts praised the predictive power of its user data .
These surveillance methods have been enabled by the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — and of an entire tracking ecosystem around them .
Over the past decade or so , the kindred spirits of the advertising industry and intelligence community have worked tirelessly and on parallel tracks to perfect their exploitation of the unimaginably vast trails of personal data collected through various mobile apps .
The ability to learn your location and predict your behavior is priceless to both Silicon Valley and the Pentagon , whether the ultimate goal is to target you with a Warby Parker ad or a Hellfire missile .
As the Covid-19 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it stands to reason that the notion of reappropriating these technologies of war and profit into the preservation of human life will only make mass surveillance more palatable to a frightened public , particularly one desensitized by a decade of smartphone ubiquity and data-siphoning apps .
There ’ s a glaring problem : We ’ ve heard all this before .
After the September 11 attacks , Americans were told that greater monitoring and data sharing would allow the state to stop terrorism before it started , leading Congress to grant unprecedented surveillance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of anything .
The persistence and expansion of this spying in the nearly two decades since , and the abuses exposed by Snowden and others , remind us that emergency powers can outlive their emergencies .
Just as the civil liberties erosions of the so-called war on terror were avoidable , a data-driven approach to pandemic response is compatible with individual rights , civil liberties advocates say — if , and only if , we demand limits and justifications every step of the way .
Here are some of their suggestions : “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ respect to responding to this catastrophe have to be those that are demanded by public health officials and experts ” as opposed to others in government , particularly “ people in the security or law enforcement business , ” said Mohammad Tajsar , an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California .
This , said Tajsar , will help ensure that governments only collect information that is actually useful rather than making a mad grab for anything that might potentially help .
“ Governments tend to have a pretty voracious @ @ @ @ @ @ @ really understanding the limitations of [ the ] information , and how and what the use cases are for responding to crises like this one , ” he said .
Coronavirus-Related Surveillance Must Be Clearly Justified Against the Costs Just because a state or agency says it needs access to Data X or Technology Y , that doesn ’ t make it so .
“ The threshold question is : has the government shown its proposed surveillance tool would effectively and significantly address the crisis ?
” said Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney Adam @ @ @ @ @ @ @ opposes it .
If so , we ask : does the benefit of the surveillance outweigh its costs to privacy , speech , and equal opportunity ?
If not , EFF opposes it.
” Tajsar added that this sort of skepticism should apply even to broadened access to “ aggregated and anonymized ” data .
“ There has to be a second conversation , ” he said , “ even in a context in which the public health community says , ‘ We want a particular kind of data.
’ ” “ Any @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said Faiza Patel , director of the Brennan Center for Justice ’ s Liberty and National Security Program at NYU Law .
“ Our physical safety is paramount , but at some point we will emerge on the other side of this crisis.
” When that happens , she added , lawmakers and citizens should be vigilant to ensure that there has been no compromise of constitutional civil liberties and that data collected for Covid-19 is not retained .
Data Collected for Covid-19 Should Be Walled Off , Like the U.S. Census Personal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has the tendency to drift to other users ; old mug shots are run through facial recognition systems , user emails are sold from one advertiser to another .
The possibility of similar drift with coronavirus data could deter certain marginalized groups — undocumented immigrants or people with criminal records , for example — from participating in opt-in data collection efforts .
One way around this is to treat Covid-19 data like U.S. census data , said Albert Fox Cahn , founder and executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project .
Tight @ @ @ @ @ @ @ actually encourages people to volunteer it .
“ You can ’ t use it to put people in jail , ” he said of the census .
“ You can ’ t use it for immigration enforcement .
You can ’ t use it for tax collection.
” “ We have such strong privacy safeguards , not because that information wouldn ’ t be useful other agencies — it would be hugely useful — but because they know that [ otherwise ] Americans would never give us an accurate count.
” Lindsey Barrett @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s Institute for Public Representation , also emphasized the importance of walling off public health data from those whose mission isn ’ t public health .
“ A very clear [ guardrail ] is that any data collected for disease response measures should not be accessible to law enforcement , ” Barrett explained .
“ The CDC and state and local governments are reportedly using location data from advertisers to track the movements of people they suspect of carrying COVID19 .
What ’ s to stop them from passing that data on to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ track people by buying location data from aggregators ?
” The coronavirus pandemic presents a golden opportunity for corporate and government actors to recast previously unpalatable behavior as livesaving intervention .
NSO Group , a corporate malware firm notorious for enabling the surveillance of journalists and activists around the world , is reportedly turning toward so-called contact tracing tools to track people an infected person might ’ ve crossed paths with .
A Customs and Border Patrol commissioner recently reframed the agency ’ s controversial facial recognition system at airports as “ a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ identity , as well as protect from exposure to COVID-19.
” Said Edin Omanovic , advocacy director at Privacy International , “ Surveillance companies such as Palantir and NSO Group , social media companies , and big telcos have all now decided now ’ s the time to open up about their work and customers .
I hate to be cynical at a time like this , but I reckon there ’ s a deal of reputation laundering going on here rather than an altruistic attempt to help things based on the advice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and there ’ s no reason the government or citizens should cast bad reputations aside when choosing who to work with or what to share .
Remember the Limitations of Surveillance and Tech “ ‘ Just tech harder ’ shouldn ’ t be the government ’ s focus right now , ” said Georgetown ’ s Barrett .
“ It should be on making tests more accessible , encouraging safe social distancing measures , acquiring and distributing more ventilators , and ensuring that the people whose livelihoods are being decimated can keep a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ kids .
Silicon Valley isn ’ t going to fix this .
”

In less than a decade, whistleblowers like the NSA’s Edward Snowden and Cambridge Analytica’s Christopher Wylie helped spur a global sea change in the public’s attitude toward privacy and global data dragnets. We may now be in the midst of another seismic moment in the history of digital privacy: Mass surveillance methods could save lives around the world, permitting authorities to track and curb the spread of the novel coronavirus with speed and accuracy not possible during prior pandemics.
It’s an extraordinary moment that might call for extraordinary surveillance methods. But privacy advocates tell The Intercept that our ongoing public health crisis doesn’t have to mean creating a civil liberties crisis in turn.
The coronavirus tracking ramp-up is already well underway around the world. In South Korea, Taiwan, and Israel, authorities use smartphone location data to enforce individual quarantines. Moscow police say they’ve already busted 200 quarantine violators caught via facial recognition-enabled cameras. NSA contractor and perennial privacy offender Palantir is helping Britain’s National Health Service track infections. Apps that leverage a smartphone’s bounty of built-in, highly accurate sensors to enforce social distancing or map the movements of the infected have been deployed in Singapore, Poland, and Kenya; MIT researchers are now pitching a similar, but more “privacy friendly,” app. In Mexico, Uber sent government authorities rider data to trace the route of an infected tourist, also banning 240 users who’d taken rides with the same driver.
Read Our Complete Coverage The Coronavirus Crisis
In the U.S., public health officials, hoping to assess broad compliance with stay-at-home orders and to spot dangerous crowding, are obtaining personal location data in bulk from loosely-regulated online advertisers, and have discussed obtaining it from Google, according to news reports. A maker of “smart” thermometers, Kinsa Health, set up a special website to provide access to geographical fever clusters and other data uploaded from the hundreds of thousands of homes that use its app-enabled devices, earning Kinsa some buzz, including a recent New York Times article in which public health experts praised the predictive power of its user data.
These surveillance methods have been enabled by the rise of the smartphone and cloud computing — and of an entire tracking ecosystem around them. Over the past decade or so, the kindred spirits of the advertising industry and intelligence community have worked tirelessly and on parallel tracks to perfect their exploitation of the unimaginably vast trails of personal data collected through various mobile apps. The ability to learn your location and predict your behavior is priceless to both Silicon Valley and the Pentagon, whether the ultimate goal is to target you with a Warby Parker ad or a Hellfire missile.
As the Covid-19 pandemic worsens and death tolls increase, it stands to reason that the notion of reappropriating these technologies of war and profit into the preservation of human life will only make mass surveillance more palatable to a frightened public, particularly one desensitized by a decade of smartphone ubiquity and data-siphoning apps.
Emergency powers can outlive their emergencies.
There’s a glaring problem: We’ve heard all this before. After the September 11 attacks, Americans were told that greater monitoring and data sharing would allow the state to stop terrorism before it started, leading Congress to grant unprecedented surveillance powers that often failed to preempt much of anything. The persistence and expansion of this spying in the nearly two decades since, and the abuses exposed by Snowden and others, remind us that emergency powers can outlive their emergencies.
Just as the civil liberties erosions of the so-called war on terror were avoidable, a data-driven approach to pandemic response is compatible with individual rights, civil liberties advocates say — if, and only if, we demand limits and justifications every step of the way. Here are some of their suggestions:
Health Officials Must Drive Data Decisions
“Whatever decisions or policies are implemented with respect to responding to this catastrophe have to be those that are demanded by public health officials and experts” as opposed to others in government, particularly “people in the security or law enforcement business,” said Mohammad Tajsar, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.
“Governments tend to have a pretty voracious appetite when it comes to data.”
This, said Tajsar, will help ensure that governments only collect information that is actually useful rather than making a mad grab for anything that might potentially help. “Governments tend to have a pretty voracious appetite when it comes to data without really understanding the limitations of [the] information, and how and what the use cases are for responding to crises like this one,” he said.
Coronavirus-Related Surveillance Must Be Clearly Justified Against the Costs
Just because a state or agency says it needs access to Data X or Technology Y, that doesn’t make it so.
“The threshold question is: has the government shown its proposed surveillance tool would effectively and significantly address the crisis?” said Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney Adam Schwartz. “If not, EFF opposes it. If so, we ask: does the benefit of the surveillance outweigh its costs to privacy, speech, and equal opportunity? If not, EFF opposes it.”
Tajsar added that this sort of skepticism should apply even to broadened access to “aggregated and anonymized” data. “There has to be a second conversation,” he said, “even in a context in which the public health community says, ‘We want a particular kind of data.’”
Data Collected for Covid-19 Purposes Should Expire
“Any program must be strictly time-limited,” said Faiza Patel, director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program at NYU Law. “Our physical safety is paramount, but at some point we will emerge on the other side of this crisis.” When that happens, she added, lawmakers and citizens should be vigilant to ensure that there has been no compromise of constitutional civil liberties and that data collected for Covid-19 is not retained.
Data Collected for Covid-19 Should Be Walled Off, Like the U.S. Census
Personal data vacuumed up for a stated purpose has the tendency to drift to other users; old mug shots are run through facial recognition systems, user emails are sold from one advertiser to another. The possibility of similar drift with coronavirus data could deter certain marginalized groups — undocumented immigrants or people with criminal records, for example — from participating in opt-in data collection efforts.
One way around this is to treat Covid-19 data like U.S. census data, said Albert Fox Cahn, founder and executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project. Tight restrictions on how census data is used actually encourages people to volunteer it. “You can’t use it to put people in jail,” he said of the census. “You can’t use it for immigration enforcement. You can’t use it for tax collection.”
“We have such strong privacy safeguards, not because that information wouldn’t be useful other agencies — it would be hugely useful — but because they know that [otherwise] Americans would never give us an accurate count.”
“Any data collected for disease response measures should not be accessible to law enforcement.”
Lindsey Barrett, an attorney with Georgetown Law’s Institute for Public Representation, also emphasized the importance of walling off public health data from those whose mission isn’t public health. “A very clear [guardrail] is that any data collected for disease response measures should not be accessible to law enforcement,” Barrett explained. “The CDC and state and local governments are reportedly using location data from advertisers to track the movements of people they suspect of carrying COVID19. What’s to stop them from passing that data on to ICE, which is reportedly trying to track people by buying location data from aggregators?”
Beware of Attempts at “Reputation Laundering”
The coronavirus pandemic presents a golden opportunity for corporate and government actors to recast previously unpalatable behavior as livesaving intervention. NSO Group, a corporate malware firm notorious for enabling the surveillance of journalists and activists around the world, is reportedly turning toward so-called contact tracing tools to track people an infected person might’ve crossed paths with. A Customs and Border Patrol commissioner recently reframed the agency’s controversial facial recognition system at airports as “a touch-free, hygienic way to validate your identity, as well as protect from exposure to COVID-19.”
Said Edin Omanovic, advocacy director at Privacy International, “Surveillance companies such as Palantir and NSO Group, social media companies, and big telcos have all now decided now’s the time to open up about their work and customers. I hate to be cynical at a time like this, but I reckon there’s a deal of reputation laundering going on here rather than an altruistic attempt to help things based on the advice of health experts.”
Reputations matter, and there’s no reason the government or citizens should cast bad reputations aside when choosing who to work with or what to share.
Remember the Limitations of Surveillance and Tech
“‘Just tech harder’ shouldn’t be the government’s focus right now,” said Georgetown’s Barrett. “It should be on making tests more accessible, encouraging safe social distancing measures, acquiring and distributing more ventilators, and ensuring that the people whose livelihoods are being decimated can keep a roof over their heads and feed their kids. Silicon Valley isn’t going to fix this.”