Part III of the CHHS Webinar Series on the CoVID 19 outbreak is below. CHHS Public Health Program Director Trudy Henson, and Senior Law & Policy Analyst Christine Gentry discuss legal issues with quarantine and isolation.
CHHS Public Health Program Director Trudy Henson and Senior Law & Policy Analyst Hassan Sheikh discussed the ongoing issues related to the coronavirus, in Part II of the CHHS webinar series.
Watch the video here:
By CHHS Extern Benita David-Akoro
Over the last few weeks, the novel coronavirus known as 2019-nCoV has received significant media attention. 2019-nCoV is a coronavirus originating in Wuhan, China, but now with confirmed cases in at least twenty other countries. Yesterday, the World Health Organization announced it was declaring the 2019-nCoV outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, a declaration it declined to make just over a week ago. The decision to declare a PHEIC coincided with a sharp rise in cases and a spread of the virus to other countries; WHO’s director-general cited concerns with the virus’ spread into countries with less-robust healthcare systems as one reason for declaring a PHEIC.
Globally, there is need to take action: as of January 31, 2020, the Johns Hopkins 2019-nCoV surveillance tracker reports 9,976 confirmed cases with an estimated 213 fatalities since it was first detected in December 2019. These numbers now surpass the November 2002 to July 2003 outbreak of SARs. In that outbreak, public health officials reported 8,098 infections of SARS globally, with 774 SARS-related deaths.
Public health officials worldwide agree that swift and effective measures are necessary to curtail the spread of the virus. Countries with reported cases of infections have taken various steps – from investigation to screening, quarantine and risk communication. In the US, the CDC is taking measures to ensure the early and immediate detection of the virus, including issuing a level 3 travel warning for China—recommending that travelers avoid all nonessential travel to China—and implementing public health entry screenings at 20 airports and land crossings.
Many affected countries, including the United States, have learned significant lessons from previous outbreaks and have robust public health preparedness & response plans at the ready. Currently, the U.S. has identified 6 cases, five of which were acquired outside of the U.S., and one which was transmitted from an infected patient to their spouse. Elsewhere, countries have taken sweeping measures to control the virus’ spread: Chinese authorities have declared a quarantine in Wuhan, a city of 11 million people, and imposed travel restrictions in other smaller cities in the province. Russia has closed its border with China; and some airlines have suspended flights into the country.
Certainly, the 2019-nCoV outbreak has already affected travel, economic activity, and global markets. Perhaps of more concern are the shortages of medical supplies, such as surgical masks, gloves, and disinfectants, as well as food and other household supplies. While some preparation is important, panic can lead to unintended consequences: as seen during the 2014 Ebola outbreak, surge in demand of personal protective equipment by the general public and even officials purchasing resources in preparation, can create shortages for responders and healthcare providers caring for patients in the affected areas. Additionally, misinformation about the effectiveness of prevention methods, such as disposable surgical facemasks, may lead to underutilization of more effective prevention methods, such as hand washing.
The spread of the 2019-nCoV is certainly cause for concern in a novel virus outbreak, and precautions and planning are essential to curtail the virus’ spread. Many U.S. health officials, however, are reminding people that domestically, seasonal influenza currently remains a much bigger concern, which, comparatively, kills 650,000 people worldwide every year, and in the U.S. alone this season, is responsible for 8,000 deaths. And, of course, it’s an important reminder that as you go about your day, whether you are looking at potential policies and plans for implementation if the 2019-nCoV spreads to your jurisdiction, or whether you are going about your regular day: washing your hands remains the best way to prevent the spread of viruses—whether it be the flu, or the novel coronavirus.
CHHS Public Health Program Director Trudy Henson and Senior Law & Policy Analyst conducted a webinar to discuss legal issues related to the 2019 Novel Coronavirus. Watch below:
In the last week, a novel coronavirus, first identified in the Chinese city of Wuhan, has dominated headlines as cases continue to rise. Fifteen countries have confirmed cases of the virus within their borders, and health officials in China and elsewhere are monitoring thousands of potential more cases. Although the mortality rate of the disease remains relatively low, the speed of transmission and its presence in densely-populated cities have public health officials across the globe on high alert.
The World Health Organization has currently declined to declare the Wuhan Coronavirus outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). However, in the U.S., legal preparedness and public health response mechanisms are already in motion to help monitor the disease’s spread. In times like these, knowing the public health emergencies powers available to officials at the federal, state, and local level is key to an effective, measured response.
The Center for Health and Homeland Security (CHHS) has over 18 years of expertise responding to public health emergencies. From legal preparedness, to planning and testing, to “boots on the ground,” CHHS has helped clients with responses to seasonal flu, H1N1, measles, tuberculosis, Zika, and Ebola.
Our expertise extends beyond the academic to the practical. In addition to teaching courses at the Maryland Carey School of Law on the Law and Policy of Public Health Emergencies, CHHS has advised clients on isolation and quarantine plans and setting up vaccination clinics for health department clients. We have also helped create legal toolkits for resource sharing and allocation. Through a cooperative agreement with the State Department, we have held training seminars for the West African countries’ public health officials most directly impacted by Ebola.
We regularly prepare emergency legal handbooks for states, cities, counties and quasi-governmental institutions (such as the Maryland Department of Health and Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission). These handbooks highlight both federal and state emergency declaration laws, and are invaluable for helping officials understand not only their powers, but their duties, as well the duties and powers of those around them, in order to affect a more coordinated response.
If the number of coronavirus cases grows in the U. S., many states will likely declare emergencies, which trigger extraordinary powers to the Governor and public health officials and can be challenged by civil liberty groups. Such emergency declarations were seen for SARS and Ebola, as well as H1N1. CHHS staff are ready and able to help clients with their legal and public health preparedness needs.
For additional information about CHHS, please visit our website. For questions, please email thenson@law.umaryland.edu.
For additional information about the novel Coronavirus, see:
The University of Maryland Center for Health and Homeland Security (CHHS) is proud to release its quarterly newsletter for the Fallof 2019. This edition features in-focus reports on all of our program areas, as well as a a message from our Founder and Director, Michael Greenberger.
Check it out here:
CHHS Founder and Director Michael Greenberger spoke with CSPAN’s Washington Journal on the disaster response efforts to Hurricane Dorian.
Check out the full segment here.
CHHS Director talks about the Baltimore city computer system still being under attack from hackers with WBAL.
CHHS Founder and Director Michael Greenberger spoke with the Sun about the hacking of Baltimore City systems. You can read the full article here:
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not
necessarily reflect the views of the Center for Health and Homeland Security.
What was your last conversation about? Were you sharing coffee with your colleagues and discussing Tom’s recent trip to Spain? Brenda was there too and you both lamented being stuck in the office as you listened to Tom describe his adventures. At any rate, you go back to your desk and have a quick scroll through Facebook and suddenly you see an ad for flights to Spain. What’s going on? Is Facebook listening to you through your phone?
While we can’t know for certain, and Mark Zuckerburg has adamantly denied the accusation, it seems unlikely that Facebook is actively listening to your conversations. The first reason why it’s not likely is that you would notice if your phone’s microphone is constantly on and uploading voice data files to the internet on a regular basis. Application and data settings within both iPhone’s and Android allow you to view how much data an app is sending or receiving. While audio files aren’t particularly large, you would still notice an uptick in data usage. Battery usage would also be a concern as phones with an always listening feature for their voice assistant tend to have SoC chips in order to combat the power draw of listening for a particular phrase. Your phone either doesn’t have this chip, or if it does, Facebook does not have access to root permissions to interface with this chip.
The second reason Facebook probably isn’t listening to you is because of the coverage they would receive. More, and more, and more, Facebook keeps appearing in the news under negative light. It’s surprising how viable they are considering the awful things they’ve been found to partake in. All of these news stories would pale in comparison to actual, irrefutable proof that Facebook has active mics to listen to your everyday conversations. Sure, the trope is around and people make jokes about them listening – but if it came to fruition there would (hopefully) be a mass exodus from the website.
The final reason, and perhaps the most upsetting of the three – is that they don’t really need to listen to you. Voice transcription technology has gotten fairly strong as evidenced by our many voice assistants like Amazon Alexa – but the technical power it would take to comb through hours and hours of raw voice recordings, transcript it all, comb through to find relevant conversations, and then voice match it to the particular person they want to would be exhaustive. Instead of that, Facebook has used a variety of smart techniques to build a profile for you. First, even if you’re not on Facebook – they have a profile for you. Second, Facebook can track you outside of Facebook’s website using cookies. On top of those particularly unsettling realizations, Facebook has your contact list (along with the contact list of most of the people in your contact list), your location at most times, your birthday, your likes, the posts you click on, the ads that interest you, your web searching habits, and so on. With all of this information, Facebook can target you pretty well.
So let’s circle back to our initial scenario. Tom’s trip to Spain? Facebook probably knows you and Tom work together, Facebook probably knows that Tom was in Spain, and maybe Brenda seriously wished she was somewhere warm and beautiful. She Googled Spain – enough to trigger an algorithm to send you an ad about flights to Spain, hoping that you and Brenda purchase some flights (netting Facebook some extra cash).
What does that mean for you? Well, it depends on your personal values and what you as an individual get out of using Facebook. They most likely aren’t listening to you through your phone mic, but the idea that they don’t need to is genuinely more worrisome. As of this writing, Facebook made the news again today by admitting they left “hundreds of millions of passwords in plain text”. I’d leave Facebook if I could, and have essentially stopped posting anything to it (even though they own both WhatsApp and Instagram, but that’s a different story), but I haven’t deleted my account because unfortunately Facebook is still an excellent service to stay connected. My high school reunion was organized through Facebook, my graduate school’s events were organized through Facebook, and Facebook remains the easiest option to quickly message someone I don’t regularly text or call.
I have no doubt that as soon as a viable alternative to Facebook appears, people will hop over to it. The problem is that social networking websites are only as helpful as the amount of people using them, and people don’t want to use new ones since they already have the old, more robust, network (R.I.P Google+). While we wait Facebook out we need to encourage our representatives to take a hard look at how we protect citizen’s privacy and the internet as a utility going forward – however given Ajit Pai and his views on net neutrality, the utter incompetency Congress showed while questioning Mark Zuckerburg, and just the general complete lack of oversight surrounding the internet they’ll need a lot of encouragement.
