How Chinese Apps Handled Covid-19

If big tech ends up making a real difference in this fight, an unavoidable consequence will be politicans becoming afraid of apps.

China’s apps played a pivotal role in supporting some of the most effective tactics the country used in fighting Covid-19, including the use of fever clinics and the strict quarantining of individuals based on their risk level. Apps there exposed a plethora of tools to keep people healthy, well-stocked, and at-ease during the crisis. Chinese tech c... See more

Unlike other cities passing similar policies at the time, they also established a digital platform for reporting workers’ health and gradually whitelisting more enterprises to re-open. Naturally, the system could only be accessed via Alipay and Dingtalk (Alibaba is based in Hangzhou). Central to the system was the notion of a personal health QR cod... See more

Security guards at companies and apartment complexes came up with their own schemes to compel sick people to quarantine. This involved doing temperature checks and asking people about their health and travel history before being allowed into offices, stores, and public transit. To help with this, the phone companies provided a service to offer proo... See more

Maybe then, the next time something like this comes along, our politicians will do a better job.

Since the post-2016 “techlash”, tech companies in Silicon Valley have acted with a sometimes suffocating sense of caution and unease about their power in the world. They are extremely careful to not do anything that would set off either party or anyone with ideas about regulation. And they seldom use their pixel real estate towards affecting politi... See more