It's no coincidence that the countries (mainly in Asia) who chose to pull cell data to trace infected people have kept their death rates much lower. I wouldn't be comfortable with the precedent it would set but I'd be happier with the results.
Taiwan is the obvious model here than used cell data to track people. The privacy concerns are real, but they can be mitigated. We just have to be willing to explore those options instead of putting them down right away. There has to be a way to quarantine and track the sick people so that the rest of society can behave almost normally. Clearly, what Canada has been doing has not worked very well and people and businesses paid a heavy price. So we have to be better prepared next time and stop doing things half-assed during a crisis. You can't fight a fire with a garden hose.
