United States President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani just went on a rant suggesting that contact tracing to curb coronavirus is ridiculous. He even cites examples to say that other diseases that cause death are not traced. His examples? Obesity and cancer.
Giuliani had been invited to a Fox News programme to speak on the contact tracing initiative undertaken by the New York government. Contact tracing, although an elaborate and time-consuming process, has always been considered one of the most effective methods of keeping infectious diseases in check and has been adopted by numerous countries for years. During the deadly Covid-19 outbreak, several countries are choosing to go for contact tracing as a means of tracking infected cases.
When asked about contact tracing, Giuliani brushed it aside and called it ridiculous.
“That’s totally ridiculous. Then we should trace everybody for cancer. And heart disease and obesity. I mean, a lot of things kill you more than COVID-19. So we should be traced for all those things.”
These were his exact words. However, obesity and cancer aren’t exactly infectious, Mr. Giuliani and contact tracing is meant to be exclusively for contagious diseases.
Watch Giuliani speak here:
Rudy Giuliani calls extensive tracing ridiculous and says we should do tracing for cancer, heart disease, and obesity because a lot of things kill more than Coronavirus pic.twitter.com/GOFLGTr0SN
— Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) April 24, 2020
The World Health Organisation lists contact tracing as an important way of keeping contagion in check. The website also provides a justification for contact tracing saying that those who have come in contact with an infected person are at greater risk of developing the disease themselves. There are three steps in the process – contact identification, contact listing and contact follow-up.
But then again, the Trump government has declared war on the WHO itself and announced that they would be suspending funding to the organisation. Trump has, on multiple occasions, even blamed WHO for siding with China.
This is not the first time Giuliani has come under the scanner for providing false information related to Covid-19.
Last month, Twitter deleted his tweets which claimed that Hydroxychloroquine had proved to be 100% effective against Covid-19. Contrary to what Giuliani tweeted, the drug is only being tested as of now and there has been no official approval from the Food and Drug Administration yet.
