COVID-19 KILLS KAPITALISM
Other Pandemics Didn't Crash The Economy. This Chart Shows Why COVID-19 Is Different

The novel coronavirus appears to be more contagious than previous outbreaks.

The world has survived deadly viruses and other types of pandemics before, but never in modern history has one caused an economic crash anywhere near the sort we are seeing today with the coronavirus crisis. 

During the 1918-19 Spanish flu outbreak, the most severe pandemic in recent history, the Dow Jones stock index declined around 10 per cent over more than a year. In this COVID-19 pandemic, it lost more than 30 per cent in a month.

Why is this happening? Why did we have to shut down the economy to deal with COVID-19 when we didn’t have to for SARS in 2003, or the H1N1 pandemic in 2009?

A new report from National Bank of Canada points to an answer: the virus appears to be more contagious than previous pandemics, making it easier for COVID-19 to spread.

The “basic reproduction number” for COVID-19 is nearly 3.5 ― meaning that the average person who contracts it will infect nearly 3.5 other people. That is much higher than the typical flu virus that goes around, or any of the viral pandemics over the past century, which had considerably lower reproduction numbers, as this chart from NBF shows.

NATIONAL BANK FINANCIAL

This chart from National Bank Financial economist Krishen Rangasamy shows that the novel coronavirus is considerably more contagious than earlier pandemics.

“In that context, unprecedented action taken by governments worldwide to shut down the economy, while painful, is understandable,” NBF economist Krishen Rangasamy wrote.

The high contagion rate of the virus may be why the world was caught off guard, and ended up having to lock down borders and order people to stay home to prevent the spread. And the impact of that “unprecedented action” spooked the markets, sending them tumbling from recent record highs ― at a time when many people were already concerned that there was a bubble in the price of stocks and other assets.

If COVID-19 does prove more contagious than others, one possible explanation may have to do with its long incubation period, before sufferers show any symptoms. The science is not yet settled, but it’s possible that people carrying the virus can infect others before showing symptoms.

If so, that’s a huge problem. Because COVID-19′s incubation period seems to be quite long, at least for some people. The current accepted number is two to 14 days, and in some cases, it has been as long as three-and-a-half weeks.

That’s a long time for infected people to walk around, unknowingly spreading the virus, which is why officials have been advising people to stay home and practise social distancing as much as possible. 

A new obsession

It all suggests that, until there is a vaccine or a treatment, any future COVID-19 outbreaks may require extraordinary responses from governments.

And it means economists have a new obsession: The “reproduction number” of viruses, or “R0” in scientific notation.

“You bet the next time there’s an outbreak, economists will be asking ‘what’s the R0 of this virus?’” Rangasamy wrote.

The Juul Executive Who Was Overseeing $1 Billion In Cuts Is Leaving

It’s the latest high-profile departure for the e-cigarette manufacturer.


Stephanie M. LeeBuzzFeed News Reporter
Reporting From San Francisco, California March 31, 2020

Stephanie Keith / Getty Images

SAN FRANCISCO — The executive who was overseeing Juul’s cost-cutting efforts is leaving the e-cigarette startup after less than a year on the job, the latest of several high-profile departures.

Guy Cartwright, the chief transformation officer, is out, according to a staff memo sent Tuesday and obtained by BuzzFeed News.

In the memo, CEO K.C. Crosthwaite said Cartwright had been “instrumental” in the company’s effort to cut $1 billion in costs, which began late last year. That included laying off 650 staffers, or about 16% of the startup’s global workforce.

Crosthwaite said Bob Robbins, who oversees sales in the Americas, would be taking on an “expanded role” and leading the “business model optimization efforts to position the company for long-term success.” The CEO did not explain why Cartwright was leaving.

Cartwright joined the company in July, according to his LinkedIn profile and became the chief financial officer in October before being appointed chief transformation officer in January. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A Juul spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

At the end of 2018, Juul was valued at $38 billion. But since then, the San Francisco startup has been under tremendous pressure to save money, in large part because it faces marketing restrictions in the US and elsewhere that have cut into its sales. Under heavy criticism for allegedly helping fuel the teen vaping crisis in the US, it stopped sales of all its nontobacco flavors and suspended marketing and lobbying in the US late last year. It has also been kicked out of China and banned in India, once hoped to be two of its biggest potential new markets.

Since the fall 2019 layoffs, during which several top executives left, others have followed. Juul cofounder James Monsees left this month. And in February, the company forced out its two executives who oversaw its Europe and south Asia markets and laid off a portion of its staff in its Singapore office.


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Stephanie M. Lee · Feb. 25, 2020
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Stephanie M. Lee · March 12, 2020
Juul Employees Say “Morale Is At An All-Time Low” After Its Worst Year Ever
Stephanie M. Lee · Feb. 5, 2020

Stephanie M. Lee is a science reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in San Francisco.

A Major Tobacco Company’s $13 Billion Investment In Juul Violates Antitrust Laws, The FTC Said

More than a year after Altria took a one-third stake in Juul, valuing the e-cigarette company at $38 billion, the FTC is seeking to unwind the deal.

Stephanie M. LeeBuzzFeed News Reporter
Reporting From San Francisco, California
April 1, 2020

Stephanie Keith / Getty Images

SAN FRANCISCO — The Federal Trade Commission is suing to undo Altria’s nearly $13 billion investment in the popular e-cigarette maker Juul, alleging that the deal violates antitrust laws.

Altria, one of the world’s largest tobacco manufacturers, paid $12.8 billion in December 2018 for a 35% stake of Juul, becoming its largest stakeholder and valuing the San Francisco startup at $38 billion. The FTC’s complaint, filed Wednesday, alleges that the investment illegally eliminated competition between the two companies.

Altria used to make its own e-cigarettes, under the brands MarkTen and Green Smoke, until December 2018. As competitors, Altria and Juul tracked each other’s e-cigarette prices and “raced to innovate,” the FTC said in a press release.

That race effectively ended by the end of 2018, by which time Juul had become a household name and the most popular e-cigarette maker in the US. The FTC alleged that “Altria dealt with this competitive threat by agreeing not to compete in return for a substantial ownership interest in Juul.”

“Altria and Juul turned from competitors to collaborators by eliminating competition and sharing in Juul’s profits,” Ian Conner, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition, said in a statement.
As part of the
 investment, Altria would have been able to appoint representatives to Juul’s board of directors and convert its shares to voting securities. But those moves have been on hold as the FTC has been reviewing the investment, the Wall Street Journal reported in January.

In a memo obtained by BuzzFeed News, Juul’s chief legal officer told staff on Wednesday night that the company would be reviewing the complaint.


A Juul spokesperson declined to comment.

Separately, the FTC has been investigating the marketing practices of Juul and other e-cigarette companies. Juul has been widely criticized — and sued by regulators across the country — for allegedly advertising its addictive products to youth and helping start the teen vaping crisis. Juul, for its part, said its goal has always been to help adult smokers quit conventional cigarettes.

Since Altria put money in the startup, its investment has lost value as Juul has struggled to keep its footing. Late last year, Juul stopped sales of all its nontobacco flavors in the US while it’s in the process of asking the FDA to allow it to sell its products. It’s also faced a combination of regulatory restrictions and lackluster sales overseas. It laid off 650 employees in the fall, and over the last two months a series of high-profile executives, including cofounder James Monsees, have left.

Juul’s valuation is now calculated to be $12 billion.


MORE ON THIS
Juul Cofounder James Monsees Is Stepping Down
Stephanie M. Lee · March 12, 2020

Juul Is Forcing Out Two Top Executives And Laying Off Global Staff
Stephanie M. Lee · Feb. 25, 2020

Juul Employees Say “Morale Is At An All-Time Low” After Its Worst Year Ever
Stephanie M. Lee · Feb. 5, 2020

Stephanie M. Lee is a science reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in San Francisco.

ICE Must Release 10 Chronically Ill Immigrants After A Judge Said They’re Not Safe From The Coronavirus While In Custody

More than 38,000 immigrants are in ICE custody at US jails, and advocates fear conditions are ripe for mass infections and casualties.
Hamed AleazizBuzzFeed News Reporter March 31, 2020

Gerald Herbert / AP
Detainees wait for their turn at the medical clinic at the Winn Correctional Center in Louisiana, Sept. 26, 2019.

A federal judge ordered the immediate release of 10 immigrants in government custody on Tuesday, saying it would be “unconscionable and possibly barbaric” to keep the chronically ill detainees in jails where they could be exposed to the coronavirus.

The order issued by US District Judge John E. Jones III mandates the immediate release of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees from three county facilities in Pennsylvania — York, Clinton, and Pike — and comes as advocates continue to argue that immigration officials should cut the detention population.

“Should we fail to afford relief to Petitioners we will be a party to an unconscionable and possibly barbaric result,” Jones wrote in his order. “Our Constitution and laws apply equally to the most vulnerable among us, particularly when matters of public health are at issue. This is true even for those who have lost a measure of their freedom. If we are to remain the civilized society we hold ourselves out to be, it would be heartless and inhumane not to recognize Petitioners’ plight.”

The ruling comes just days after a federal judge in New York City also ordered the release of a group of ICE detainees.

For weeks, immigrant advocates have pushed ICE to release certain immigrants with underlying medical issues from the facilities and to scale back arrests, saying detention facilities were ripe for mass infections and casualties. There are currently more than 38,000 immigrants in ICE custody within private and local jails.

So far, the agency has not changed its detention practices in response to the pandemic.

“We are thrilled that the court agreed that our clients must be released immediately,” said Reggie Shuford, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, which represented the detainees.

Jones echoed the concerns from advocates saying that the immigrant detainees “are unable to keep socially distant while detained by ICE and cannot keep the detention facilities sufficiently clean to combat the spread of the virus.” He added that, based on the nature of the virus and alleged situation within the jails, the detainees “face a very real risk of serious, lasting illness or death.”

The detainees who will be released have various medical complications, including diabetes, high blood pressure, blood clots, nerve pain, and leukemia.

ICE has already reported that four immigrants in its custody in New Jersey jails have tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

“This virus spares no demographic or race and is ruthless in its assault. The precautions being adopted to stop it should apply equally, if not more so, to the most vulnerable among us,” Jones wrote. “Petitioners have shown that adequate measures are not in place and cannot be taken to protect them from COVID-19 in the detention facilities, and that catastrophic results may ensue, both to Petitioners and to the communities surrounding the Facilities.”

An ICE Detainee Who Was Released After Getting The Coronavirus Fears What's Next: "This Has Hit My Whole Body"

Hamed Aleaziz · March 27, 2020

Immigrants Afraid Of The Coronavirus Outbreak Are Protesting Inside ICE Facilities

Hamed Aleaziz · March 26, 2020
Immigration



Hamed Aleaziz is a reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in San Francisco.

Contact Hamed Aleaziz at hamed.aleaziz@buzzfeed.com.

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People Are Bailing Out Inmates From New York City's Biggest Jail, Where The Coronavirus Outbreak Is Skyrocketing

“It’s manifestly unfair to expose people to potentially fatal illness,” said a lawyer working on the crowdfunding effort.

Dominic Holden BuzzFeed News Reporter March 30, 2020

Andrew Kelly / Reuters
Signage outside of Rikers Island, a prison facility, where multiple cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed.

The journalists at BuzzFeed News are proud to bring you trustworthy and relevant reporting about the coronavirus. To help keep this news free, become a member and sign up for our newsletter, Outbreak Today.

While coronavirus infections in New York City’s largest jail have skyrocketed to nearly 10 times the rate of the city’s residents overall — according to one legal organization’s analysis — a grassroots crowdfunding campaign has been bailing out the Rikers Island inmates.

The Emergency Release Fund, a group of organizers and activists in New York, has raised $18,000 since March 23 and freed five inmates in the last three days, Alex Tereshonkova, a member of the group, told BuzzFeed News on Monday. The average donation is $20.

“They haven't been convicted of crimes,” said Tereshonkova, who pointed out that the inmates eligible for cash bail still have yet to receive a court trial. This month, New York suspended new trials indefinitely. “These people being detained are innocent until proven guilty. They have the same right to live that we do.”

Tereshonkova said inmates eligible for bail face charges ranging from parole violations, such as breaking a curfew, to more serious offenses like robberies — but they now wait in limbo, many of them sharing cells, as the virus closes in around them.

Founded in September, the Emergency Release Fund had originally focused on freeing transgender inmates, who historically have endured higher rates of violence and sexual assault behind bars. That focus has expanded during the pandemic, said Tereshonkova, to prioritize LGBTQ people and people of color, and now, to free anyone else at Rikers Island who qualifies for cash bail. “At this point, we are doing everybody.”

On Monday, news spread that Lorena Borjas, a transgender woman whose activism included ending cash bail in New York City, had died from complications from COVID-19, the disease caused by coronavirus.

Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund@TLDEF
Today TLDEF mourns the passing of the legendary Lorena Borjas, due to complications from COVID-19. Lorena was a champion of the transgender community, particularly Translatinx women of Jackson Heights, Queens. Thank you for everything, Lorena. Rest in Power.04:58 PM - 30 Mar 2020

Tereshonkova said that in addition to paying the inmates’ bail, the fund works to arrange lodging and transportation so they have a home upon release.

Rikers Island has 139 cases of COVID-19 among its 4,637 inmates, about 3% of the population, according to a report on Sunday from the Legal Aid Society, thereby outpacing infection rates in New York City; Wuhan, China; and Lombardi, Italy. The group has filed three lawsuits this month with moderate success to get inmates released. Meanwhile, the Washington Post reported Sunday the first inmate in the nation died of COVID-19 in Louisiana.

The New York City Department of Correction told BuzzFeed News on Monday evening that the number of cases had increased — 167 incarcerated patients and 114 personnel had tested positive for the virus.

Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo separately announced that some inmates — including those with underlying conditions who face low-level charges — will be released.

But Josh Goldfein, an attorney and member of the Emergency Release Fund, told BuzzFeed News, “That still leaves thousands of people on Rikers Island, which has the highest infection rate in the world.”

“People cannot follow any social distancing guidelines if they are incarcerated — it’s just not physically possible,” he said. “It’s manifestly unfair to expose people to potentially fatal illness on that basis.”

The ACLU, a national progressive advocacy group, released poll results Monday that found 63% of registered voters support releasing “vulnerable populations” from jails and prisons to stop the spread of COVID-19.

Releasing prisoners during the pandemic has ignited some skepticism and anger. The New York Post reported that a city Department of Correction source said releasing inmates was “a disgrace to all correction officers — insane and dishonorable.” And BuzzFeed News reported on an Alabama judge who encountered furious blowback for ordering the release of some low-level offenders.


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The Coronavirus Is Hitting US Prisons, And Advocates Fear Sick Inmates Will Be Afraid To Get Treatment

Salvador Hernandez · March 23, 2020

A Judge Ordered The Release Of Low-Level Prisoners Because Of The Coronavirus. People Were Absolutely Furious.

Emmanuel Felton · March 27, 2020

Dominic Holden is a political reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York.

Social distancing as a moral dilemma: Notes from a medical ethicist

by Emily Litvack, University of Arizona  APRIL 1, 2020 

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Social distancing is a phrase now penetrating the national conversation as well as our collective consciousness. Strongly urged by medical experts during the COVID-19 outbreak, social distancing means deliberately increasing the physical space between people to avoid spreading illness. Staying at least six feet away from other people lessens your chances of catching and spreading the virus.

The body of evidence suggesting that social distancing is a quite effective way to slow the spread of COVID-19 is growing rapidly, and Americans are beginning to treat it less like an optional precaution and more like a moral imperative. Is it? And, if it is, why are many continuing to gather?

Laura Howard is an associate professor of philosophy in University of Arizona's College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. Howard's research focuses on medical ethics and moral distress in health care. She discussed the morality of social distancing and what people's behavior during the pandemic says about the complexity of human nature.

At this point, is social distancing a moral imperative?

This is an interesting philosophical question. A moral imperative is a command to act in a certain way, which everyone should follow, and, in order to invoke one, we need to explain what makes a particular action right or morally good.

In the context of the current health crisis, we can plausibly make the claim that it is a morally good state of affairs if we save the greatest number of lives possible. Not everyone would agree with that claim, but I'll leave that argument aside for now and return to it later. For now, let's assume that promoting health and saving lives is a morally good goal for society. Given that premise—if we also accept the empirical evidence, which suggests that social distancing is a means to halt the spread of the virus—it's easy to see how one would defend their judgment that it is morally wrong not to practice social distancing.

How might someone argue that saving lives isn't a moral imperative?

Some people might argue that there is a naturalistic and evolutionary reason to let the virus take its course. It would reduce human population, which, in the long run, could be a good thing in terms of having more resources for fewer people. Notice one thing this view entails, though: The person who holds it must be willing to accept that they or their loved ones might be among those who contribute to the population reduction.

Likewise, some might argue that certain people have more value than others and therefore deserve to live while others do not. This would require a set of criteria by which to judge the value of a life, and unless someone—or some entity—creates that criteria by fiat, then to define "a valuable life" requires us to circle right back around to our original premise.

So, basically, social distancing as a moral imperative is the most well-reasoned position during a pandemic?

Yes. If we accept that saving the greatest number of lives possible is a self-evident moral premise and if we believe the science, then it logically follows that people who are choosing not to practice social distancing are behaving immorally. Importantly, this leaves out people who don't have a choice.


Then why isn't everyone doing it?

For one thing, humans are notoriously bad at logical reasoning.

For a first example, consider that we are vulnerable to framing problems: A 20-year-old may feel she's not vulnerable if she hears that 70% of the COVID-19 cases are in the elderly population, but it is more likely to get her attention if she hears that 30% of the cases are in people ages 20 to 44. The statistics are the same, but the cognitive process is different. Because the early media reports presented the numbers with a focus on the elderly, a lot of people still think that they are immune if they're not elderly.

Another example of poor reasoning is confirmation bias, meaning people tend to seek out or only listen to information that confirms what they already believe.

Finally, consider the famous Prisoner's Dilemma, in which actors who "rationally" choose to behave in their own self-interest end up worse than if they had simply cooperated.

The one thing all of these examples share in common is that they seem to suggest that people are, at the core, very self-interested, or what we in moral philosophy call "egoistic."

But do we still act out of self-interest even when the consensus is that saving lives is a moral imperative?

Sure. Self-interest seems to stem partially from the thought that, "Well, as long as almost everyone else follows the rule, I can make an exception of myself, and it won't make that much difference." That's actually true—but not when everyone thinks and does the same thing.

Some people think that it won't make that much difference if they socialize with their friends, as long as most everyone else follows the rule, but most philosophers argue that you can't universalize such egoistic thinking, because the maxim would ultimately become self-defeating. If everyone ignores social distancing, there may be no one left to socialize with.

That's a little, well, sad.

Although it may seem that way when we're trying to explain why some people don't follow moral imperatives, remember that there are many people who are truly moral exemplars. Right now, during this public health crisis, there are so many people demonstrating generosity, kindness, compassion and even courage, as they risk their lives for others. Altruistic human goodness seems very real to me, and our greatest hope is that it spreads faster than this virus.

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Provided by University of Arizona

The Coronavirus Pandemic Has Set Off A Massive Expansion Of Government Surveillance. Civil Libertarians Aren't Sure What To Do.

As nations around the world take on sweeping new powers to fight the disease, critics aren't sure what's necessary and what's too far.
 March 30, 2020, 

The coronavirus pandemic, which has grown to over 740,000 cases and 35,000 deaths around the world, has been so singular an event that even some staunch advocates for civil liberties say they’re willing to accept previously unthinkable surveillance measures.

“I’m very concerned” about civil liberties, writer Glenn Greenwald, cofounder of the Intercept, who built his career as a critic of government surveillance, told BuzzFeed News. “But at the same time, I'm also much more receptive to proposals that in my entire life I never expected I would be, because of the gravity of the threat.”

Greenwald won a Pulitzer Prize in 2014 for his reporting on the disclosures by NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who revealed a vast secret infrastructure of US government surveillance. But like others who have spent years raising concerns about government overreach, he now accepts the idea that surveilling people who have contracted the coronavirus could be better than harsher measures to save lives.

“The kind of digital surveillance that I spent a lot of years — even before Snowden, and then obviously, the two or three years during Snowden — advocating against is now something I think could be warranted principally to stave off the more brute solutions that were used in China,” Greenwald said.

Greenwald said he was still trying to understand how to balance his own views on privacy against the current unprecedented situation. “We have to be very careful not to get into that impulse either where we say, ‘Hey, because your actions affect the society collectively, we have the right now to restrict it in every single way.’ We're in this early stage where our survival instincts are guiding our thinking, and that can be really dangerous. And I’m trying myself to calibrate that.”

“The kind of digital surveillance that I spent a lot of years advocating against is now something I think could be warranted principally to stave off the more brute solutions that were used in China.”

And he is far from the only prominent civil libertarian and opponent of surveillance trying to calibrate their response as governments around the world are planning or have already implemented location-tracking programs to monitor coronavirus transmission, and have ordered wide-scale shutdowns closing businesses and keeping people indoors. Broad expansions of surveillance power that would have been unimaginable in February are being presented as fait accompli in March.

That has split an international community that would have otherwise been staunchly opposed to such measures. Is the coronavirus the kind of emergency that requires setting aside otherwise sacrosanct commitments to privacy and civil liberties? Or like the 9/11 attacks before it, does it mark a moment in which panicked Americans will accept new erosions on their freedoms, only to regret it when the immediate danger recedes?

“Under these circumstances? Yeah, go for it, Facebook. You know, go for it, Google,” Gary Johnson, the former governor of New Mexico and 2016 Libertarian Party presidential candidate, told BuzzFeed News. “But then, when the crisis goes away, how is that going to apply given that it's in place? I mean, these are the obvious questions, and no, that would not be a good thing.”

"My fear is that, historically, in any moment of crisis, people who always want massive surveillance powers will finally have an avenue and an excuse to get them,” Matthew Guariglia, an analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told BuzzFeed News.

Marc Rotenberg, president and executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), told BuzzFeed News that it’s possible to find a solution that protects privacy and prevents the spread of the virus.

“People like to say, 'well, we need to strike a balance between protecting public health and safeguarding privacy' — but that is genuinely the wrong way to think about it,” Rotenberg said. “You really want both. And if you're not getting both, there's a problem with the policy proposal.”


Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
An aerial view from a drone shows an empty Interstate 280 leading into San Francisco, California, March 26.


Beyond the sick and dead, the most immediate effects that the pandemic has visited upon the United States have been broad constraints that state and local governments have imposed on day-to-day movement. Those are in keeping with public health experts’ recommendations to practice social distancing to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

While the US hasn’t announced a nationwide stay-at-home order like France and Italy have, large parts of the US are under some degree of lockdown, with nonessential businesses shuttered and nonessential activities outside the home either banned or discouraged. And while President Trump and his allies have focused on the economic devastation wrought by this shutdown, some libertarians have raised concerns about the damage those decrees have done to people's freedoms.

Appearing on libertarian former Texas lawmaker and two-time Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul’s YouTube show on March 19, Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie pointed to a Kentucky man who, after testing positive for the coronavirus, refused to self-isolate, and whom sheriff's deputies forced to stay home. (Massie later came under bipartisan criticism for attempting to hold up the coronavirus stimulus bill in the House.)

“What would they do if that man walked out and got in his car? Would they shoot him? Would they suit up in hazmat uniforms and drag him off?” Massie said. “Those are the images we saw in China two months ago and everybody was appalled at those images. And now we’re literally, we could be five minutes away from that happening in the United States, here in Kentucky.”

“It’s crazy, and what concerns me the most is that once people start accepting that, in our own country, the fact that somebody could immobilize you without due process, that when this virus is over people will have a more paternalistic view of government and more tolerance for ignoring the Constitution,” Massie said.

Last Monday, Paul's son, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, announced that he had tested positive for the disease, only a few days after Ron Paul wrote in his online column that the pandemic could be a “big hoax” pushed by “fearmongers” to put more power in government hands.

But the elder Paul's concerns are not shared among some of his fellow former Libertarian Party nominees for president.

Johnson said measures to encourage people to stay in their homes and temporarily shutter businesses taken by states like New York were appropriate. “I really have to believe that they're dealing with [this] in the best way that they possibly can,” he told BuzzFeed News. “And I think it's also telling that most of them are following the same route.”

Johnson added that although it was easy to raise criticisms, as a former governor, he saw few other options.

“You're just not hearing it: What are the alternatives?” Johnson said. “I don't know, not having [currently] sat at the table as governor, what the options were. And given that every state appears to be doing the same thing, I have to believe that everything is based on the best available information.”

A security guard looks at tourists through his augmented reality eyewear equipped with an infrared temperature detector in Xixi Wetland Park in Hangzhou in east China's Zhejiang province Tuesday, March 24. Feature China/Barcroft Media via Getty Images



A map application developed by The Baidu Inc. displays the locations visited by people who have tested positive for the coronavirus in Shanghai, China, on Friday, Feb. 21. Qilai Shen / Bloomberg via Getty Images


Gaming out the role of intense surveillance during a pandemic isn’t just a theoretical political debate on YouTube. Surveillance at previously politically unimaginable scales has reached countries around the world.

Imagine opening an app, scanning a QR code, and creating a profile that’s instantly linked with information about your health and where you've been. The app tells you if you’ve been in close contact with someone sick with the coronavirus.

This software already exists in China. Developed by the Electronics Technology Group Corporation and the Chinese government, it works by tapping into massive troves of data collected by the private sector and the Chinese government. In South Korea, the government is mapping the movements of COVID-19 patients using data from mobile carriers, credit card companies, and the Institute of Public Health and Environment. In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the country's internal security agency to tap into a previously undisclosed cache of cellphone data to trace the movements of infected persons in that country and in the West Bank. And in the Indian state of Karnataka, the government is requiring people in lockdown to send it selfies every hour to prove they are staying home.

No such tools currently exist in the United States — but some in the tech community who might have been expected to oppose such capacities have found themselves favoring these previously unthinkable steps.

Maciej Cegłowski, the founder of Pinboard and a frequent critic of tech companies’ intrusions into privacy, wrote a blog post arguing for a “massive surveillance program” to fight the virus.

“My frustration is that we have this giant surveillance network deployed and working," Cegłowski told BuzzFeed News. "We have location tracking. We have people carrying tracking devices on them all the time. But we’re using it to sell skin cream — you know, advertising. And we’re using it to try to persuade investors to put more money into companies. Since that exists and we have this crisis right now, let’s put it to use to save lives.”

“We put up with the fire department breaking down our door if there’s a fire at our neighbor’s house or in our house because we know that in normal times our houses are sacrosanct.”

This position is a major departure for Ceglowski, who has warned of how tech companies have invaded our “ambient privacy” and argued that tech giants’ reach into our lives is as pernicious a force as government surveillance.

“We put up with the fire department breaking down our door if there’s a fire at our neighbor’s house or in our house because we know that in normal times our houses are sacrosanct,” Cegłowski said. “I think similarly if we can have a sense that we’ll have real privacy regulation, then in emergency situations like this we can decide, hey, we’re going to change some things.”

Those doors are already being broken down. The COVID-19 Mobility Data Network — a collaboration between Facebook, Camber Systems, Cuebiq, and health researchers from 13 universities — will use corporate location data from mobile devices to give local officials "consolidated daily situation reports" about "social distancing interventions."

Representatives from the COVID-19 Mobility Data Network did not respond to requests for comment.


Peter Byrne / AP
A person watching live data reporting about the worldwide spread of the coronavirus.

Lots of companies claim that they have the technology to save people’s lives. But critics worry that they are taking advantage of a vulnerable time in American society to sign contracts that won't easily be backed out of when the threat passes.

“Sometimes people have an almost sacrificial sense about their privacy,” Rotenberg told BuzzFeed News. “They say things like, ‘Well, if it'll help save lives for me to disclose my data, of course, I should do that.’ But that's actually not the right way to solve a problem. Particularly if asking people to sacrifice their privacy is not part of an effective plan to save lives.”

In response to the pandemic, some data analytics and facial recognition companies have offered new uses for existing services. Representatives from data analytics company have reportedly been working with the CDC on collecting and integrating data about COVID-19, while Clearview AI has reportedly been in talks with state agencies to track patients infected by the virus.

Neither Palantir nor Clearview AI responded to requests for comment, but the appearance of these controversial companies has raised alarms among those in the privacy community.

“The deployment of face recognition, as a way of preventing the spread of virus, is something that does not pass the sniff test at all,” Guariglia said. “Even the companies themselves, I don't think, can put out a logical explanation as to how face recognition, especially Clearview, would help.”

The leaders of other technology companies that design tools for law enforcement have tried to offer tools to combat COVID-19 as well. Banjo, which combines social media and satellite data with public information, like CCTV camera footage, 911 calls, and vehicle location, to detect criminal or suspicious activity, will be releasing a tool designed to respond to the outbreak.

“We are working with our partners to finalize a new tool that would provide public health agencies and hospitals with HIPAA-compliant information that helps identify potential outbreaks and more efficiently apply resources to prevention and treatment,” a spokesperson told BuzzFeed News.

“We have so much history that shows us that mass surveillance generally isn't very effective, and mission creep is inevitable.”

Those efforts cause concerns for people like Evan Greer, the deputy director of digital rights activist group Fight for the Future, who told BuzzFeed News that such tools, once deployed, would inevitably be used for more purposes than to fight the pandemic.

“We have so much history that shows us that mass surveillance generally isn't very effective, and mission creep is inevitable,” she said. “It's not necessarily a question of if data that was handed over to the government because of this crisis would be repurposed. It's a matter of when.”

In addition to those companies, many camera makers have been making a bold claim: Using just an infrared sensor, they can detect fevers, helping venues filter out the sick from the healthy. These firms include Dahua Technology in Israel, Guide Infrared in China, Diycam in India, Rapid-Tech Equipment in Australia, and Athena Security in the US.

In late February, Guide Infrared announced that it had donated about $144,000 worth of equipment that could “warn users when fever is detected” to Japan. The company said its devices would be used in Japanese “hospitals and epidemic prevention stations.”

Although Guide Infrared claimed that its “temperature measurement solutions” have helped in emergencies including SARS, H1N1, and Ebola, the Chinese army and government authorities are “some of its major customers,” according to the South China Morning Post. It’s been used in railway stations and airports in major Chinese regions. It’s also partnered with Hikvision, a Chinese company blacklisted by the US over its work outfitting Chinese detention centers with surveillance cameras.

Australian company Rapid-Tech Equipment claims that its fever-detection cameras can be used in "minimizing the spread [of] coronavirus infections." Its cameras are being used in Algeria, France, Egypt, Greece, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and “many more” countries, according to its website. UK camera maker Westminster International said that it has a "supply range of Fever Detection Systems for Coronavirus, Ebola & Flu."

US company Testo Thermal Imaging sells two cameras with a “FeverDetection assistant.” A section of its website titled “Why fever detection?” argues that managers of high-traffic venues have a responsibility to filter for fevers: “Whether ebola, SARS or coronavirus: no-one wants to imagine the consequences of an epidemic or even a pandemic.”

A Testo spokesperson told BuzzFeed News that the company has seen a “massive increase in demand” for its products in response to the coronavirus and that its cameras are being used “worldwide.” The spokesperson declined to provide specific examples or name specific countries.

While the appetite for fever-detecting cameras is clearly there, civil liberties advocates have concerns. Guariglia said that, regardless of their thermal imaging capabilities, surveillance cameras are surveillance cameras.

“More surveillance cameras always have dubious implications for civil liberties. Even if their contract with thermal imaging ends at the end of six months,” Guariglia said, “I bet those cameras are gonna stay up.”


Aly Song / Reuters
A man wearing a protective mask walks under surveillance cameras in Shanghai.

Julian Sanchez, an analyst with the Cato Institute and commentator on digital surveillance and privacy issues, told BuzzFeed News he was willing to accept measures he might otherwise have concerns about to limit the spread of the virus.

“I’m about as staunch a privacy guy as it gets,” Sanchez said. “In the middle of an epidemic outbreak, there are a number of things I’m willing to countenance that I would normally object to, on the premise that they are temporary and will save a lot of lives.”

But he still questioned the efficacy of some of the current proposals: There’s “a ton of snake oil being pitched by surveillance vendors,” he said.

More than that, he had concerns about what would happen to civil liberties after the pandemic passed, but the measure put in place to combat it did not.

“I think a lot of civil liberties advocates would say, ‘Well, if this is very tightly restricted, and only for this purpose, and it's temporary, then, you know, maybe that's all right. Maybe we’re able to accept that, if we’re confident it's for this purpose, and then it ends,’” Sanchez said. “The question is whether that's the case.”

Sanchez worried that the coronavirus, like the war on terror, is an open-ended threat with no clear end — inviting opportunities for those surveillance measures to be abused long after the threat has passed.

In the same week that he spoke, the US Senate voted to extend until June the FBI's expanded powers under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, originally passed in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks 19 years ago. ●

Rosie Gray is a reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York.

Caroline Haskins is a technology reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York.

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• Millions Of People Will Get Sick And The US Is On Track For 100,000 Deaths Because Of The Coronavirus, Fauci Said