“Smart” quarantine and “blanket” quarantine: the Czech response to the COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT

By the end of May 2020, the Czech response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been recognized as a “success” following the fast introduction of strict nationwide preventive measures, nicknamed a “blanket quarantine”. This article focuses on the alternative and rival concept of a “smart quarantine”, which emerged at the beginning of the lockdown. Inspired by Korean and Singaporean anti-COVID-19 smart city solutions, a group of ICT professionals volunteered to develop a system that promised to help limit the spread of the infection and, at the same time, ease the nationwide lockdown within a foreseeable time. The idea was received enthusiastically, yet, two months later, smart solutions are still not fully integrated. This article reconstructs the story of the smart quarantine in Czechia and suggests considering possible societal consequences of unsatisfactorily valid smart tracing methodologies. Rather than seeing lockdown and smart solutions as opposite approaches to the current risk, it shows that a hybrid strategy may be considered, if not necessary, especially in contexts where smart solutions have been previously applied only to a limited extent.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• smart quarantine
• contact tracing
• Czechia

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Michal Šimeček for his valuable comments and discussions about the topic of smart quarantine.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This article was produced with the financial support of the Ministry of Transport of Czech Republic within the programme of long-term conceptual development of research institutions on the research infrastructure acquired from the Operation Programme Research and Development for Innovations (CZ.1.05/2.1.00/03.0064).