Flashback: People Injected With Flu Vaccines Will be Issued Bracelets with Tracking Codes
September 16th, 2009Oh sure.
Via: Boston Globe:
Using technology originally developed for mass disasters, Boston disease trackers are embarking on a novel experiment – one of the first in the country – aimed at eventually creating a citywide registry of everyone who has had a flu vaccination.
The resulting vaccination map would allow swift intervention in neighborhoods left vulnerable to the fast-moving respiratory illness.
The trial starts this afternoon, when several hundred people are expected to queue up for immunizations at the headquarters of the Boston Public Health Commission. Each of them will get a bracelet printed with a unique identifier code. Information about the vaccine’s recipients, and the shot, will be entered into handheld devices similar to those used by delivery truck drivers.
Infectious disease specialists in Boston and elsewhere predicted that the registry approach could prove even more useful if something more sinister strikes: a bioterrorism attack or the long-feared arrival of a global flu epidemic. In such crises, the registry could be used to track who received a special vaccine or antidote to a deadly germ.
“Anything you can do to better pinpoint who’s vaccinated and who’s not, that’s absolutely vital,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy at the University of Minnesota. “I wish more cities were doing this kind of thing.”
I can’t believe anyone would wear those more than 20 min. That sort of thing is only useful for people being put under anesthesia at the hospital, or for children who can’t remember their home address. What happened to computerized medical records. This is the sort of thing middle managers trying to find a useful project invent.
“The resulting vaccination map would allow swift intervention in neighborhoods left vulnerable to the fast-moving respiratory illness.”
This sentence is key. The closing holes when the mass follows order scare me. This is the problem we have today: Not having a digital loyalty card makes you standing out – not buying dubious stuff or writing on the internet. Being a blank slate citizen could be much more dangerous than being “somewhat outside the norm.”
Btw, who thinks this will be used to determine the area of government influence in general?