Digital contact tracing against COVID-19: a governance framework to build trust

Abstract

Since the outbreak of COVID-19 in late 2019 and its classification as a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) in March 2020, the numbers of deaths and infections have continued to rise globally. As of December 2020, the count is at over 70 million diagnosed cases and over 1.5 million deaths. In Latin America, numbers have spiked recently, reaching over 14 million infections and 470,000 deaths, with the highest number of cases respectively in Brazil, Argentina, and Colombia. According to the WHO, the transmission rate (R0) of COVID-19 in Wuhan in January and February— prior to the implementation of comprehensive control measures—was 2–2.5, making COVID-19 highly contagious. Facing this unprecedented crisis, most Key Points