🇺🇸 영어 원문
After three people died on a cruise ship struck by a hantavirus, authorities are actively tracking down 29 people who had left the ship. They are trying to trace the spread of the virus. It is a long, arduous, global process to find and notify people who might be at risk of infection.
Contact-tracing apps were a global effort starting in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic. Enabled by phone companies like Apple and Google, contact tracing was designed to use Bluetooth connections to detect when people had come in contact with someone who had or would later test positive for Covid and report as much. It did not do much to solve the spread of the pandemic, but tracking the virus became more effective at least. The same process would not go well for the hantavirus problem.
There is no use of apps for this hantavirus outbreak, Emily Gurley, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University, wrote in an email response to WIRED. The number of cases are small, and it is important to trace all contacts exactly to stop transmission.
On a smaller scale of infection like this, officials have to start at the source (an infected individual), then go person-by-person, confirming where they went and who they might have come into contact with. Data collected by apps from a broad swath of devices would not be anywhere close to accurate enough to give a good idea of where the virus might have hitchhiked to next.
Contact tracing on a wider scale, like a global pandemic, is less about tracking the individual infections and more about understanding what parts of the population might be affected, giving people the opportunity to self-quarantine after exposure. But that depends on how people choose to respond, and how the technology is utilized by public emergency systems. During the Covid pandemic, contact-tracing via apps tended to work better in more carefully managed European countries, but did not slow the spread in the US.
Making devices accessible to that kind of proximity information has also brought all sorts of concerns about privacy, given that the technology would require always-on access to work properly. Contact tracing also struggled to maintain accuracy, and in some cases could be providing false negatives or positives that do not help further real information about the spread of the virus.
Especially in the case of something like the Hantavirus, where every person on that cruise ship can theoretically be directly tracked and contacted, it is better to do that process the hard way. During small but highly fatal outbreaks, more precision is required, Gurley wrote.
🇰🇷 한국어 요약
크루즈 선상에서 하타바이러스로 3 명이 사망하자, 당국은 선상을 떠난 29 명의 접촉자를 추적하고 있습니다. 코로나 팬데믹 당시 널리 사용되었던 ‘접촉자 추적 앱’은 대규모 감염 상황에서는 유용할 수 있지만, 하타바이러스처럼 사례 수가 적은 소규모 발생 상황에서는 한계가 있습니다. 존스홉킨스 대학의 역학자 에밀리 거리는 소규모 감염 발생 시에는 앱보다 사람이 직접 접촉 경로를 하나하나 확인하는 것이 전파를 막는 데 더 정확하다고 강조했습니다. 또한, 항상 위치 정보를 수집하는 기술은 사생활 침해 우려가 있으며, 오작동으로 인한 정보의 부정확성 문제도 있습니다. 따라서 치명적인 소규모 유행에서는 정밀한 수동 추적이 더 효과적입니다.
🔑 핵심 단어 (Vocabulary)
- Contact-tracing – 접촉자 추적 – Contact-tracing apps were widely deployed during the Covid pandemic.
- Deployed – 배치되다, 사용되다 – They were deployed during the pandemic to track users.
- Epidemiologist – 역학자 – Emily Gurley, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University.
- Transmission – 전파, 전달 – It is important to trace all contacts exactly to stop transmission.
- Proximity – 근접, 인접 – Making devices accessible to that kind of proximity information.
- Quarantine – 격리 – Giving people the opportunity to self-quarantine after exposure.
- Precision – 정밀함, 정확성 – During small but highly fatal outbreaks, more precision is required.
- Privacy – 사생활, 개인 정보 보호 – Concerns about privacy have been raised regarding the technology.
- Infection – 감염 – Notify people who might be at risk of infection.
- Authorities – 당국, 관청 – Authorities are actively tracking down 29 people.
🔗 원문 링크
https://www.wired.com/story/could-contact-tracing-apps-help-with-the-hantavirus-not-really/