All coronavirus patients who happened to be in multiperson public places during the disease’s incubation period ought to voluntarily allow their names to be released, along with the places and times that they closely interacted with others.
To do otherwise is to selfishly risk the further spread of the contagion.
To be clear, this is not to say that laws protect patient privacy should be violated or changed. The revelation of identity and other information should be voluntary, by the patient, not legally coerced. Still, the interests of public safety and of basic decency should impel (not compel) patients to be fully forthcoming.
Think about it this way: It’s not like catching the virus is a character flaw or something for which someone can be blamed. Nor is it blameworthy to have been in public with it when it remains asymptomatic for so long. Every halfway decent person would direct compassion, not anger, at any coronavirus victim. So why the need for privacy?
Yet in story after story about those stricken with the contagion, the names of the patients are withheld. For example, in the case of the person diagnosed with the virus after attending the Conservative Political Action Conference near Washington, D.C., two weeks ago, the reports say that CPAC is informing those with whom the patient remembered having contact that they might have been infected and that they should be watchful for symptoms. Yet, while other news outlets are now reporting who the patient probably is (I provide no link, because, again, the Washington Examiner respects patient privacy), his name has not been publicly confirmed.
But what about those he doesn’t know by name or doesn’t remember being in contact with? Shouldn’t they know he is ill, in case they remember having contact with him? Obviously, he is more likely to remember his interactions with public figures such as Republicans, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar, than he is to remember everyone else with whom he shook hands. Why shouldn’t all those others, and their kin, be able to take the same precautions that Cruz and Gosar now are taking in order to stop the further potential spread of the sickness and in order to more quickly treat any symptoms they might begin to experience?
Remember that viruses such as this one multiply quickly. Each infected person is likely to endanger dozens or even hundreds of others before even being aware that he has been infected. Information and resultant self-isolation are crucial, in order to keep an outbreak from becoming a true pandemic.
Granted, there may be some idiots, and I use that word deliberately, who might blame the carrier of the virus. The likelihood that any carrier would be subjected to vitriol from these idiots is low. But if for some reason the patient has concerns along these lines and still wants his identity kept private, it still behooves him to get information out as broadly as possible about the places and times where he remembers being in close contact — standing in line, at a buffet table, at a self-serve coffee dispenser, or whatever — with people or surfaces that might spread infection.
Privacy is important, but there are some circumstances in which we truly are “all in this together.” It’s time we started acting like it.
