Alabama and Massachusetts are Giving the Addresses of People Diagnosed with Coronavirus to Police

Alabama and Massachusetts are now giving addresses of people who have been diagnosed with the Coronavirus to the police in an effort to ‘contain the virus.’ 

The lists are updated daily so first responders called by ambulance know if people in the home have the virus.

Full names of people are supposedly omitted from the lists and the states promise to delete the information after the Coronavirus crisis is over.

The Daily Mail reported: 

The states of Alabama and Massachusetts are now giving the details of people who are known to have been diagnosed with coronavirus to the police.

Alabama has been providing the addresses but not names to law enforcement and other emergency responders for more than a week.

The information is supposed to be given to officers when they go out on calls.

‘The impetus behind this is to protect first responders because 911 receives the information and coordinates the response of first responders. That was deemed the most efficient way to share this information.’

‘The Alabama Department of Public Health was requested to provide addresses of patients home quarantined for COVID 19 to the Alabama 9-1-1 Board for the protection of first responders,’ said Arrol Sheehan, director of public information at the Alabama Department of Public Health.

Civil rights advocates say these policies puts first responders in more danger since many people who have the Coronavirus show no symptoms.

‘It’s based on an early and mistaken idea that the disease was only spread by people who were obviously symptomatic,’ Dr. Deborah Peel, founder of the advocacy group Patient Privacy Rights, said, reported the Daily Mail.

‘We now know that that’s wrong, so it makes no sense. Everybody should act in a careful, social distancing way to interact with anybody’s door they have to knock on.’