[HN Gopher] NZ considering $100m contact tracing 'CovidCard'
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NZ considering $100m contact tracing 'CovidCard'
Author : Calcite
Score : 24 points
Date : 2020-04-19 21:30 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.newsroom.co.nz)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.newsroom.co.nz)
| mr_toad wrote:
| The conspiracy theorists almost had it right. It's not tinfoil
| hats we need, it's tinfoil bags and pockets.
| popped wrote:
| Surely just installing an app voluntarily would get enough
| tracing to be effective?
|
| As a kiwi who has spent half my life living in different
| countries, I can say trust in the government here, while not
| universal, is higher than anywhere else I've been. I think most
| people would do it
| dimensi0nal wrote:
| "The only central register of card IDs would be held by the
| Government and isolated from other Government databases, so it
| could not be used for anything other than Covid-19 contact
| tracing."
|
| What does "could not" mean, anyway?
| usaar333 wrote:
| The arguments the promoting organization is using against a
| smartphone app (e.g. Google and Apple's thing) are pretty
| dubious. That seems like the easiest way to do digital tracing by
| far.
| barbegal wrote:
| The big problem with all radio based contact tracing solutions is
| the receiver. Receivers use at a minimum several mW of power. A
| typical Bluetooth low energy receiver will use about 50mW so will
| drain a coin cell battery in a day. Bluetooth low energy saves
| energy by transmitting for very short periods of time so transmit
| power is low but receiver power can be high. Even asking most
| consumers to leave their phone's Bluetooth recovery on all day is
| a big ask because of the impact on battery life.
|
| Schemes could be designed to better synchronise receivers and
| transmitters so the receiver can be switched off most of the time
| but this currently can't be done with Bluetooth.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| Your phone's Bluetooth scanning IS always on if it's an iPhone
| or Android. Always. By default.
| mikedilger wrote:
| "Without fast case isolation after restrictions ease, modelling
| shows that the virus could spread exponentially and ultimately
| kill 100,000 Kiwis."
|
| The left out the word "unreasonable". "Unresaonable modelling
| shows..."
|
| See the Tailrisk analysis:
| http://www.tailrisk.co.nz/documents/Corona.pdf
| Taniwha wrote:
| Yeah but the Tailrisk guy is not an epidemiologist, he's out of
| treasury and naturally has is more economy focused outlook.
|
| One person's "unreasonable" can be another's "sensible caution"
| teruakohatu wrote:
| Kiwi here, I belive this is either snake oil or a conceptual idea
| rather than a product. The media are touting it as credit card
| sized device, but with a battery it would need to be much
| thicker.
|
| Here in lockdown we are allowed to go for a walk or cycle.
| Potentially this card could register thousands of contacts.
| Taniwha wrote:
| Yeah - I design this sort of thing and I can't understand how
| the power management of this thing works - battery life has to
| be a month or so (or it's a cm thick).
|
| Remember that when you're talking at GHz (ie BT) you have to
| keep your receive PLLs powered up to receive data, that's ~1/2
| the power requirements of short distance transmitting
| teruakohatu wrote:
| Some media here have claimed a 6 months to a year of battery
| life. I am very skeptical.
| Taniwha wrote:
| Exactly - I'm not saying it can't be done, just that I'm
| highly highly skeptical
| amelius wrote:
| You don't need to transmit or receive continuously.
| Taniwha wrote:
| If you have two cards that are going to talk to each other
| one needs to be listening when the other is transmitting,
| if they're off 95% of the time (like the stuff I design)
| then 95% of the time someone transmits no one will be
| listening.
|
| You can try and do something smart around synchonising
| wakeup times nationwide, but that is genuinely hard (and
| requires a xtal clock to be awake at all times, also
| burning power)
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(page generated 2020-04-19 23:00 UTC)