South Australia has had an interesting week. They locked down an entire state based on a falsehood. Someone claimed to be a customer of a pizza shop but was actually an employee. Details are here. That person is in big trouble. Is that fair? https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-20/how-a-lie-to-coronavirus-contact-tracers-sent-sa-into-lockdown/12904572 [1/n]

The person was working two jobs. One at a quarantine hotel and the other at the pizza shop. They weren't the only one. That's how the virus transmitted. But authorities thought it was through pizza delivery itself and panicked. [2/n]

It is true: if there was a new strain of Covid that spread through mere delivery that was a problem. But why did they not more properly entertain the possibility that the customer was, in fact, more closely associated with the pizza shop? They already had one such example. [3/n]

That was a bad judgment call. But who is going to pay the price? At the moment, it seems the worker. The worker who worked two jobs and worried about losing them. The worker who might have been worried the pizza shop would go out of business. The worker who told them ... [4/n]

... about a connection but lied about its nature. How were they supposed to know that it would have critical epidemiological implications? So that worker will be fired from two jobs, faces criminal prosecution and then will face the unique Australian public outrage. [5/n]

That does not seem right to me. The person was not at fault here but the situation. And the experts need to take some of the responsibility here for not asking the right questions. [6/n]

This is an opportunity for understanding and education. That will help contact tracers do their job more than causing people to 'fear' wrongdoing that wasn't actually wrongdoing. Someone needs to rise above it all. [n/n]