How Digital Contact Tracing Slowed Covid-19 in East Asia

East Asian countries have had striking success flattening the Covid-19 curve. The key is aggressive application of mobile contact-tracing technologies — either voluntary or mandatory — and a collectivist spirit that encourages a civic-minded embrace of and a more willing compliance with governments’ infection control efforts. These technologies work, but require privacy violations that western democracies may be unwilling to accept. Technologies that preserve privacy while permitting effective tracing may be part of the solution.