(NaturalHealth365) Did we just fall asleep and wake up in Orwell’s 1984?  More and more surveillance talk is creating turmoil around the world, with serious questions being raised about violations of personal freedom and bodily autonomy. Chief among these questions is this: what is contact tracing, and what does it mean for myself and my loved ones?

Between these forced quarantine initiatives that reek like state supervision, and the looming possibility of mandatory immunizations, many concerned citizens are starting to feel as if government health agencies have become a direct threat to the very value of personal sovereignty.

Financial incentives offered for contact tracing: Thousands may be driven into forced quarantine

CONTRACE Public Health Corps is an organization aiming to recruit and train contact tracers – as they proudly say on their website, it’s the “largest US civilian mobilization since World War II.”

They define contact tracing as “the tracking down of infected people, and then finding everyone who has been near them and encouraging them to self-isolate at home.”  Yes, they willingly use the term “tracking down.”  As if people are prey to be stalked and hunted.

Promoters of contact tracing say that quarantine of infected individuals and their close contacts will be voluntary – but many are skeptical.  Democratic Govenor Jay Inslee of Washington state recently announced they are launching a major contact tracing initiative, supposedly intended to help re-open the community.

However, the initiative states that both people who test positive and people who have had close contact must quarantine in their homes for 10-14 days.

In other words, Washington state public health officials (and the 1,200+ citizens recruited to work for them) have the power to tell its citizens who have no symptoms and have not tested for infection of a virus to remain confined in their homes for two weeks simply because they might have contracted SARS-CoV-2 from someone else.

What’s more, states are luring neighbors to snitch on neighbors with contact tracing jobs offering up to $30/hour.  Talk about kicking the country when it’s down.  First, toppling the economy and forcing people not to work, then offering lucrative jobs that only further advance the agenda to control the mobility of members of a free society.

Associated Press reports that The Department of Health in Washington states participation in the program is voluntary. We can only hope this proves true in the next coming weeks to months.

Other countries employing Big Brother practices like contact tracing include China, South Korea, and Australia (who’s “COVIDSafe” smartphone app will be used “to find and alert the contacts of people infected with the coronavirus,” according to Science magazine). Belgium is also experimenting with “virus bands” that vibrate when they come within 3 three meters (10 feet) of each other, in order to promote social distancing.

Privacy issues notwithstanding, many critics say that there’s not enough evidence to say whether the use of these types of smart technology will actually help influence behavior and reduce infection rates.

As contact tracing gains ground, glaring problem remains regarding testing procedures

Aside from the blatant disregard for personal privacy and tech issues, there’s yet another major ethical problem associated with the whole contact tracing and forced quarantine ideology:

Quarantines will be based on inaccurate tests. Current reports indicate that at best, SARS-CoV-2 tests have up to 96% specificity. That means that 4 out of 100 people who don’t have the virus will end up testing positive for it anyway – and that’s while testing under ideal conditions.

Getting an accurate sample isn’t always possible, and there have been reports of possible tainted tests being used. For this reason, coronavirus testing many be only about 70 percent specific.  Yet, we are supposed to rely on these tests to determine who can and cannot move freely throughout the community?

Stay tuned as NaturalHealth365 continues to monitor the progress of these contact tracing initiatives and what our readers report to us about their experience with these initiatives in their communities.

Sources for this article include:

Medium.com
Forbes.com
Medicalxpress.com
Sciencemag.org
Contrace.org
Thepennyhoarder.com
Popsci.com