Technology companies in South Korea helped tackle COVID-19. The U.S. government can incentivize U.S. tech companies do the same.

As a resident of Silicon Valley heading into our second week under the shelter in place order, what surprises me is the sudden low profile of the tech companies that dominate this area. Until just a month ago it seemed like these companies were taking over the world - churning out new products, connecting people online, providing information and news, and in turn driving equity and real estate prices to unprecedented new highs. But as the COVID-19 cases explode in the US, we rarely hear about them. Public health workers are at the frontlines fighting the war against COVID-19, and grocery stores and retailers are stepping up to the challenge of trying to maintain normalcy of life and providing for the people.

I wonder whether Apple is still pre-occupied with the development of the next iteration of the iPhone, and Google with the development for better search algorithms. Wouldn’t today’s tech companies with their vast resources, creative minds, and technical skill be able to help minimize the impact of COVID-19?

Tech companies in South Korea have played an important role in containing the spread of the virus and reducing casualties. Soon after the first COVID-19 case was confirmed within South Korea, at least four tech companies have launched apps that provide detailed information of the movement of all people who tested positive for COVID-19 – from which restaurant the person visited at what time, to the seat number the person sat in which movie theatre.

The information was collected from a variety of sources including smartphone location data and credit card transactions. The names were anonymized but providing such detailed information raised privacy concerns. However, the South Korean government was swift to declare COVID-19 a public health emergency, which ultimately gave the people the right to information for their safety, and companies to use such data. Moreover, the government allowed companies to by-pass traditional regulatory hurdles.

When Seegene, a biotech company in Seoul, used artificial intelligence to develop South Korea’s first COVID-19 test kit, it needed to get government approval for use. The approval process typically can take over a year, but the Korea Center for Disease Control approved it in a week. Though COVID-19 cases surged in South Korea soon after its first case, the aggressive testing policy and the information provided through these apps have helped South Korea to quickly “flatten the curve,” that is, slow the rate of new infections.

So why don’t we see U.S. tech companies developing new technologies and innovation that can help contain the spread of the virus, minimize the impact, and develop strategies that help people cope with the crisis? It’s because such actions would not generate immediate returns to the company. Despite the greater societal benefit of slowing down the spread of the virus, unless there are clear private returns CEOs and shareholders will be unlikely to devote their resources to fighting a virus with so much uncertainty.

In simple economics terms, it’s a classic case of market failure; and the standard remedy in cases of market failure is government intervention. The government needs to provide incentives, either through relaxing regulatory hurdles or by subsidizing research and development, to encourage tech companies to help contain the virus and minimize the impact of COVID-19 on our society. It is not an issue of big vs. small government, but governments creating the right incentives when private firms can’t easily make the right call.

The U.S. has finally taken measures in the manufacturing sector to fight COVID-19. The White House after several days of going back and forth, eventually invoked the Defense Production Act to order GM to produce ventilators. But hospitals around the country also need masks and personal protection equipment. Unlike smaller countries without a strong manufacturing base, the U.S. has the manufacturing capacity to produce these goods, if the will is there. These manufactured goods are essential for our doctors and nurses in helping patients and fighting the virus.

However, we need more innovative approaches, beyond traditional public health approaches, to fight COVID-19 and future pandemics. Tech companies, in addition to pharmaceuticals and biotech companies that are developing vaccines and cures, can play a significant role in fighting pandemics. Tech companies can use information and communication technology (ICT) to inform the public and reduce the spread of diseases, use machine learning to diagnose new diseases, predict future outbreaks and the spread of current outbreaks, and predict when and which resources would be in need in different parts of the country. Furthermore, there may be more innovative ways to tackle the virus that many of us have not yet thought of. The government can induce tech companies to actively take action by offering R&D grants and loans, providing access to critical information and data, and reducing red-tape.

The South Korean government recognized the urgency of the situation and enlisted the help of private tech firms allowing them to do what they do best with minimal red tape and access to the necessary resources. The European Union has recently put out a call for startups that are developing technologies and innovation related to COVID-19 to apply for fast-track funding.

Chinese tech giants like Alibaba and Tencent, potentially through explicit or implicit government directive, have been actively involved in fighting the COVID-19 crisis. Alibaba has deployed an AI algorithm that predicts COVID-19 from lung CT scans. The procedure only takes a few seconds, which not only substantially speeds up diagnosis but also reduces the risk of doctors and nurses being exposed to the virus. Tencent has committed over 1.5 billion Yuan (over 210 million USD) to help fight COVID-19, which will be spent on prevention and control but also on funding companies that are developing new ways to overcome the pandemic and help with the recovery.

People are sacrificing their individual rights and income. Small businesses are closing doors. All this for the good of the greater public. U.S. tech companies, together with the right push from the federal and state governments, should be able to put aside private returns and short-termism for the moment and work towards an innovative approach to mitigating the impact of today’s crisis.

Yong Suk Lee is an Economist at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Deputy Director of the Korea Program at Stanford University.

COVID-19 presents us with both our worst public health crisis in a century and the greatest challenge to our democracy since World War II. Here is a national strategy to address both challenges, writes Larry Diamond. Read here. 

The authors of “The End of History” and “Reading Lolita in Tehran” discuss coronavirus, Iran, James Baldwin, campus culture, and why imagination and literature are essential to combatting authoritarianism. Read here. 

In the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, good news often goes missing.  It’s worth highlighting that today, March 27, NATO has a new member, the Republic of North Macedonia.   Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg tweeted the news from NATO HQ in Brussels, and Skopje, the capital, was ecstatic: "The Republic of North Macedonia is officially the new, 30th NATO member," the government said in a statement. "We have fulfilled the dream of generations."

The Republic of North Macedonia’s journey was a long one, dragged out by a dispute with Greece over the name of the country, and who had the greater claim to certain historical figures, particularly Alexander the Great.  For a long time, Athens feared that Skopje would go after its territory, the region of Greece that also goes by the name Macedonia.  Because Greece is a member of both NATO and the European Union, it could hold up Skopje’s membership in both institutions.  Luckily, the logjam was broken by an important compromise in 2018, when the country agreed after difficult negotiations with Athens to go by the name “Republic of North Macedonia.”

One can easily see the importance of NATO membership to the Republic of North Macedonia, but what is its importance to NATO?  The first point to emphasize is that no country gets invited to join NATO unless it has gone through a long and difficult process to bring its armed forces up to NATO standards: countries cannot enter NATO unless they are capable of being security providers, serving in NATO operations when they are called on to do so. 

The second point is that the Republic of North Macedonia is in a difficult neighborhood, the Western Balkans, long a source of bloody disputes among neighbors and never-ending instability.  To become a member, Skopje had to resolve those disputes, and not only with Greece, but also with NATO members Bulgaria and Albania.  As a result, new stability has come to a region stretching from the Adriatic to the Black Sea, across the southeast of Europe.  New stability means a better shot at economic development, as the last member to enter NATO, Montenegro, found out.  Its economy grew strongly in the years after its accession in 2017.  Economic health, in turn, further bolsters stability—a beneficial cycle.

So what the Republic of North Macedonia can do for NATO is help provide for stability in a region of the globe that has long suffered a dearth of it.  This result would be good at any time, but while we must grapple with the implications of COVID-19, having this small country with NATO in the fight will be a benefit to all. 

NATO is a military alliance, but it also provides its members with assistance, training and expertise on matters such as disaster relief and border security.  The high standards that NATO maintains ensures that its members can contribute responsibly both in their regions, but also, if asked, on the international front.  Whether NATO as an institution will be asked to contribute to address COVID-19 is not clear at this time.  Perhaps the NATO Foreign Ministers meeting virtually next week will have something to say on that score.  But we can say that NATO is capable of contributing—including its newest member, the Republic of North Macedonia. 

Rose Gottemoeller is the Payne Distinguished Lecturer at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Center for Security and Cooperation at Stanford University, and was formerly the Deputy Secretary General of NATO

On March 24, the United Nations let it be known that the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference is “likely to be postponed” because of the coronavirus pandemic. The NPT RevCon, as it’s known, was due to take place April 27 to May 22 at the UN Headquarters in New York. The gathering is an opportunity once every five years to reconfirm the basic bargain at its heart: The five nuclear weapon states under the Treaty, the U.S., UK, France, China and Russia, agree to reduce nuclear weapons and move toward their ultimate elimination, and the non-nuclear weapon states agree not to acquire nuclear weapons.  That is practically everyone else, because only India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea stand outside the NPT.  2020 is an especially important year for the Treaty, its fiftieth anniversary of sustaining this important bargain.

A postponement is inevitable.  It would not be feasible to meet in person in New York at this time, with thousands of national delegates joined by large contingents from the non-governmental community, supporting arms control and nonproliferation efforts.  Delay may even have a silver lining in that it could allow some groups, such as the nuclear weapon states, to continue working together to launch some new initiatives to bolster nuclear disarmament. 

It may also be dangerous, however.  North Korea has already been testing short-range missiles off its coastline, at the same time claiming that it is impervious to coronavirus.  As the world’s attention is riveted by the pandemic, Pyongyang may feel the temptation to make rapid progress on some aspect of its nuclear weapon program, restarting fissile material production or even conducting a nuclear test. 

The NPT community normally keeps all eyes on North Korea, and never is that behavior more in evident than during the RevCon, because of the peculiar conundrum that the country poses to the NPT system.  North Korea sought to withdraw from the NPT in 1994, notifying under the procedures of the Treaty its intention to do so.  However, the NPT community never accepted that withdrawal notification, and diplomatic efforts ever since have been focused on getting the DPRK to give up its nuclear weapons program and rejoin the NPT family.  Because of this limbo status, there is a placeholder for North Korea at every RevCon table, and an enormous amount of discussion of withdrawal policy under the Treaty. 

Iran comes to mind as another possible mischief-maker, although Iran is so immersed in fighting the coronavirus that its resources for new work on its nuclear program are likely to be limited.  In this case, perhaps the postponement could have a positive effect, for unlike North Korea, Iran has never attempted to withdraw from the Treaty.  It is clearly still a part of the NPT family.  Countries who are helping Iran to cope with disease could also use this time as an opportunity to encourage its renewed cooperation with the NPT and its nuclear nonproliferation objectives.  

Thus, although postponement of the NPT Review Conference is inevitable, the nuclear policy community needs to keep a sharp eye out during the pause, to ensure that nuclear mischief does not ensue, whether from North Korea or from other countries.  At the same time, we should look for opportunities for extra progress, whether among the nuclear weapons states, or with states who have posed proliferation concerns inside the NPT family.

Stanford Health Policy's Eran Bendavid and Jay Bhattacharya write in this Wall Street Journal editorial that current estimates about the COVID-19 fatality rate may be too high by orders of magnitude.

"If it’s true that the novel coronavirus would kill millions without shelter-in-place orders and quarantines, then the extraordinary measures being carried out in cities and states around the country are surely justified. But there’s little evidence to confirm that premise—and projections of the death toll could plausibly be orders of magnitude too high.

"Fear of Covid-19 is based on its high estimated case fatality rate — 2% to 4% of people with confirmed Covid-19 have died, according to the World Health Organization and others. So if 100 million Americans ultimately get the disease, 2 million to 4 million could die. We believe that estimate is deeply flawed. The true fatality rate is the portion of those infected who die, not the deaths from identified positive cases."

"The latter rate is misleading because of selection bias in testing. The degree of bias is uncertainbecause available data are limited. But it could make the difference between an epidemic that kills 20,000 and one that kills 2 million. If the number of actual infections is much larger than the number of cases—orders of magnitude larger—then the true fatality rate is much lower as well. That’s not only plausible but likely based on what we know so far."

Read the Editorial 

On Feb. 12, White House National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien announced that the U.S. government has “evidence that Huawei has the capability secretly to access sensitive and personal information in systems it maintains and sells around the world.” This represents the latest attempt by the Trump administration to support an argument that allied governments—and the businesses they oversee—should purge certain telecommunications networks of Huawei equipment. The position reflects the preferred approach in the United States, which is to issue outright bans against select companies (including Huawei) that meet an as-yet-unknown threshold of risk to national security.

Read the rest at Lawfare Blog

As the deaths and detected cases from the COVID-19 epidemic continue to rise globally, government planners and policymakers require projections of its future course and impacts. They also need to understand how potential interventions might “flatten the curve.”

“It’s important to understand these overall effects by geographic area, demographic group, and for special populations like health-care workers,” says Stanford Health Policy’s Jeremy Goldhaber-Fiebert, who will be teaching a new class in the spring on infectious disease modeling with Stanford Medicine’s Jason Andrews. “Doing this requires mathematical models that incorporate the best available clinical, epidemiological, and policy data along with their associated uncertainties — the state-of-the-art of infectious disease modeling.”

Goldhaber-Fiebert and Andrews will debut the new course, Models for Understanding and Controlling Global Infectious Diseases (HUMBIO 154D for undergrads and HRP204 for graduate students) in the upcoming spring quarter. Stanford Provost Persis Drell announced last week that all spring courses at the university will now be taught online and pushed the start of the new quarter April 6.

Andrews is an infectious disease physician and assistant professor of medicine and Goldhaber-Fiebert, an associate professor of medicine, is a decision scientist.

The class will enable students to become critical consumers of studies using infectious disease modeling and to learn the building blocks for constructing infectious disease models themselves.

Despite the course being new and listed in the middle of winter quarter, they have seen enrollment rise from eight — prior to the rise of COVID-19 in the U.S. and its direct impacts on Stanford’s operations — to nearly 30 students as of March 22.

“Together Jason and I are leading one of several efforts on COVID-19 modeling here in Stanford,” said Goldhaber-Fiebert. “And we anticipate that the course will increase the number of Stanford students with the necessary skills to contribute to Stanford’s leadership in this area.”