Last Updated on May 13, 2020
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Centers For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) policy confirms that “Contact Tracing” data may be sent to the World Health Organization (WHO) and to law enforcement authorities “to place someone under quarantine or isolation.” The Contact Tracing records, stored at the CDC and elsewhere, can also be sent to the Department of Justice, State Department, Department of Homeland Security, congressional offices, and to various medical and legal departments and contractors. Democrats are currently seeking $100 billion in a bill that would authorize grants to conduct contact tracing at people’s homes. Meanwhile, Americans are fearing the political implications of contact tracing, considering that Chelsea Clinton is on the board of trustees of one official contact tracing group that has accepted large sums of money from Bill Gates and George Soros organizations.
HHS records show a System of Records Notice (SORN 09-20-0171) in the Federal Register marking the creation of the record system called “Quarantine- and Traveler-Related Activities, Including Records for Contact Tracing Investigation and Notification…” The records pertain to “Individuals subject to quarantine or isolation orders, ill travelers (i.e., passengers and crew), contacts of ill travelers, and/or individuals exposed or suspected of being exposed to serious communicable diseases.” The records include: “Passenger and crew manifests from conveyances carrying individuals subject to 42 CFR parts 70 and 71, case reports, illness response forms, medical assessments, medical records (including but not limited to clinical, hospital and laboratory data and data from other relevant tests), name, address, date of birth, and related information and documents collected for the purpose of carrying out agency responsibilities under sections 311 and 361-368 of the Public Health Services Act.” The records are being stored at: “Division of Global Migration and Quarantine, National Center for the Preparedness, Detection, and Control of Infectious Disease (NCPDCID), Coordinating Center for Infectious Diseases (CCID), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1600 Clifton Road, NE., Building 16; MS E03, Atlanta, GA 30333. Records may occasionally be stored at Quarantine Stations located at key ports of entry and at contractor sites.”
READ THE HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES PRIVACY GUIDELINES HERE (emphasis added):
“(1) Records may be disclosed to contractors to handle program work duties, performing many of the same functions as FTEs within DGMQ in situations where additional staff is required. Contractors are required to maintain Privacy Act safeguards with respect to such records.
(2) Records may be disclosed to state and local health departments and other cooperating medical and public health authorities and their counsel to more effectively deal with outbreaks and other significant public health conditions.
(3) Personal information from this system may be disclosed as a routine use to appropriate conveyance personnel, Federal agencies, state and local health departments, Department of State and embassy personnel (U.S. and foreign), and health authorities in foreign countries for contact tracing investigations and notifications of possible exposures to serious communicable diseases in connection with travel.
(4) Records may be disclosed to the Department of Homeland Security to restrict travel of persons who pose a public health risk and in the instance of suspected domestic or international terrorism.
(5) Disclosure may be made to medical personnel providing evaluation and care for ill or exposed persons, including travelers.
(6) Records may be disclosed to the World Health Organization in accordance with U.S. responsibilities as a signatory to the International Health Regulations or other international agreements.
(7) Personal information may be disclosed to federal, state, and local authorities for taking necessary actions to place someone under quarantine or isolation, for enforcement of other quarantine regulations, or to protect the public’s health and safety.
(8) Records may be disclosed to cooperating state and local legal departments enforcing concurrent legal authority related to quarantine or isolation activities.
(9) In the event that a system of records maintained by this agency to carry out its functions indicates a violation or potential violation of law, whether civil, criminal or regulatory in nature, and whether arising by general statute or particular program statute, or by regulation, rule or order issued pursuant thereto, the relevant records in the system of records may be referred, as a routine use, to the appropriate agency, whether federal, foreign, state or local, charged with the responsibility of investigating or prosecuting such violation or charged with enforcing or implementing the statute, or rule, regulation or order issued pursuant thereto.
(10) Disclosure may be made to a congressional office from the record of an individual in response to a verified inquiry from the congressional office made at the written request of that individual
(11) In the event of litigation where the defendant is: (a) The Department, any component of the Department, or any employee of the Department in his or her official capacity; (b) the United States where the Department determines that the claim, if successful, is likely to directly affect the operations of the Department or any of its components; or (c) any Department employee in his or her individual capacity where the Justice Department has agreed to represent such employee, disclosure may be made to the Department of Justice to enable that Department to present an effective defense.
(12) Records may be disclosed to appropriate Federal agencies and Department contractors that have a need to know the information for the purpose of assisting the Department’s efforts to respond to a suspected or confirmed breach of the security or confidentiality of information disclosed is relevant and necessary for that assistance.”
SOROS, GATES, AND CLINTONS
Partners in Health was recently selected by Massachusetts governor Charlie Baker to conduct Coronavirus “contact tracing,” a process that involves teams of investigators finding out who infected people have come into contact with. The group is already “training and deploying hundreds of contact tracers.” Some citizens fear the potential for mass surveillance posed by contact tracing, especially in light of a Democrat-introduced bill in Congress to authorize contact tracing “at individuals’ residences.” Partners In Health’s involvement will not assuage many fears, considering the group has received funding from George Soros and Bill Gates organizations and counts Chelsea Clinton on its board of trustees.
Partners in Health lists George Soros’ Open Society Foundations as an official partner, along with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Partners In Health lists Open Society Foundations on its 2015 annual report as a supporter to the tune of $1 million or above, along with the Gates Foundation. Chelsea Clinton serves on Partners in Health’s Board of Trustees, according to its 2019 annual report.
Partners in Health co-founder Paul Farmer’s achievement.org bio notes: “Farmer’s work attracted the support of philanthropists, including George Soros and Bill and Melinda Gates. In 2002, PIH received a $13 million grant from the Global Fund for improvements in the Cange complex. In 2005 the William J. Clinton Foundation funded a Partners in Health AIDS program in Rwanda.” Farmer and Chelsea Clinton did a Clinton Foundation podcast together in 2019.
In response to a 2007 tuberculosis outbreak in Africa, NBC News reported: “Soros’ Open Society Institute announced a $3 million grant to the non-profit organization Partners in Health and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. The donation will be used to design a model project of community-based XDR-TB treatment in Lesotho. Once treatment guidelines are developed, experts hope the program will be adopted in other poor countries.”
Soros personally announced the grant and said he hoped it would spark a larger project. For this initiative, Partners In Health was cited by name in the propaganda book The Philanthropy of George Soros: Building Open Societies.
In 2011, International Women’s Health Coalition noted, “YP Foundation Founder to Join Paul Farmer, George Soros, at IWHC Gala.” Farmer was honored at the gala, which Guest of a Guest noted had David Rockefeller in attendance.
In 2014, Partners In Health co-founder Paul Farmer secured multi-million dollar Soros financing for a coalition project in Africa. Farmer was featured in an October 2014 video interview on Soros’ Open Society Foundations website, which stated, “In between trips to Liberia, Paul Farmer of Partners In Health visited Open Society’s offices to discuss his work on Ebola. Paul talked about the need to ensure sustainable health systems for people in nations where the virus has spread.” Farmer blasted “fear and conspiracy theories around fatal illnesses” in the video and talked about how to “attack” conspiracy theories with activism.
Forbes reported in September 2014: “There’s never been a connection between Ebola and first-rate medical care,” says Paul Farmer, the renowned co-founder of Partners in Health, before pointing out that none of the health care workers flown back to the U.S. for treatment have died. Could the answer to the outbreak lie in the care regiment for those afflicted?
We’ll soon find out. Farmer landed in Liberia this morning, at the center of a coalition quietly formed to specifically – and quickly – test that thesis. In the next few weeks, the Farmer group will open a top-notch treatment facility in one of Liberia’s most rural provinces, along with strategies designed to maximize its effectiveness.
“This has been coming together for years,” Farmer tells Forbes, a few hours before departing on the trip. “The Ebola crisis pushed it over the edge.”
The impetus for this coalition began with a meeting two weeks ago, convened by Farmer’s co-founder at Partners in Health, Jim Kim, who is now president of the World Bank. Attendees included Director-General Margaret Chan of the World Health Organization, Tom Frieden, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Francis Collins, Director of the National Institute for Health. Dismayed by the global response – Kim told the group that the outbreak already ranks among the worst health crises in world history — Kim tabbed Farmer as the World Bank’s special Ebola advisor and also enlisted another attendee at the meeting, Raj Panjabi, who runs Last Mile Health in Liberia. (Full disclosure: Panjabi was mentored at last year’s Forbes 400 Summit on Philanthropy and I now chair the advisory board for Last Mile Health, which hires, trains and manages front-line health care workers in remote villages.)
George Soros’ Open Society Foundations quickly provided $4 million to fund this project. “The coalition got us a proposal the next day, they answered all our questions the day after, and we got them the funds they needed before the week was out,” says Chris Stone, the organization’s president. The project was appealing to Soros’ team because it features a local group familiar with the turf, an entrepreneurial mentality and the ability to scale.”
Forbes passage ends
Contact Tracers Exposed https://t.co/vv5pUJXyOo
— Patrick Howley (@HowleyReporter) May 11, 2020
Meanwhile…
Prospective Coronavirus contact tracers in New York City are required to understand “institutional and structural racism” and to support immigrants and the LGBTQ community. The government is employing contact tracers to investigate who infected persons come into contact with, leading to civilian concerns that privacy is being attacked. (RELATED: Democrats Introduce Bill To Authorize Contact Tracing At People’s Homes).
A job posting on Columbia University School of General Studies states: “The Fund for Public Health in New York City (FPHNYC), in partnership with the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH), is seeking contact tracers to perform case interviews and contact tracing to support the citywide COVID-19 response. using a trauma-informed, culturally respectful approach that builds trust and facilitates the free sharing of information.” The job includes “Conducting in-person investigations into congregate settings and selected cases and contacts.”
Listed requirements include: “Ability to understand the concepts of institutional and structural racism and bias and their impact on underserved and underrepresented communities” and “Have a demonstrated commitment to supporting communities who have experienced systemic oppression and bias (e.g. people of color, LGBTQ people, immigrants, justice involved persons, etc.)”
Democrat Rep. Bobby Rush has introduced a bill in Congress to authorize the federal government to grant approved entities the right to conduct contact tracing for Coronavirus at “individuals’ residences.” Contact tracing involves investigators tracing every interaction that infected people have.
Rep. Rush introduced HR 6666, “COVID-19 Testing, Reaching, and Contacting Everyone (TRACE) Act” on May 1, 2020 and it has been referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. The bill has 45 co-sponsors. According to the text of the bill: “To authorize the Secretary of Health and Human Services to award grants to eligible entities to conduct diagnostic testing for COVID-19, and related activities such as contact tracing, through mobile health units and, as necessary, at individuals’ residences, and for other purposes.”
People are concerned that the government might be angling to use contact tracing to remove people from their homes and place them in quarantine, after a Ventura County, California health official suggested doing just that (and later walked it back, though it’s unclear what his proposed policy actually is at this time).
WHAT WOULD YOU DO if your six year old son or daughter tested positive for COVID19 and was taken from your home to a quarantine center by Ventura Health Authorities? This SHOCKING VIDEO demands that you plan ahead. #BeBrave #HistoryRepeating pic.twitter.com/e5RC7dCO7o
— Del Bigtree (@delbigtree) May 6, 2020
Former Democrat president Bill Clinton extensively discussed contact tracing recently in video interviews with Democrat leaders including governors Andrew Cuomo and Gavin Newsom:
The video I highlighted of Bill Clinton discussing a potential "Contact Tracer Corps" was taken down, but here is another version of it that features Bill talking to Cuomo and Newsomhttps://t.co/cr1aDlY8X0
— Patrick Howley (@HowleyReporter) May 9, 2020
The New York City progressive group “Muslims For Progress” is pushing contact tracing while it also promotes socialist Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez during the Coronavirus response.
The group describes itself thusly: “We are a grassroots coalition of Muslim American professionals, business owners and civil servants across New York City and its suburbs. We represent a community of concerned citizens who are joining the political conversation about issues that affect us. We intend to do this by staying informed, engaged and organized.” The group’s May 9 “Virtual Iftar” featured Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and a speech promoting contact tracing. Contact tracing is being pushed for hard by the political Left, raising fears that the practice could be used for politically motivated surveillance of citizens. (READ: Contact Tracing Group Funded By Soros and Gates Organizations, Counts Chelsea Clinton on Board).
@syramadad speaking at the #MFPVirtualIftar about Contact Tracing, Testing, and Healthcare Capacity. We have 90+ on a first-of-a-kind “Virtual Iftar” pic.twitter.com/GnGB1gbaRk
— Muslims For Progress (@MFP_NY) May 9, 2020
Looking forward to speaking at the @MFP_NY virtual iftar event tomorrow alongside the fabulous @AOC pic.twitter.com/jc5ukF8Bpb
— Dr. Syra Madad (@syramadad) May 8, 2020
Dr. Syra Madad has also retweeted material touting contact tracing results and criticizing remdesivir, which, like hydroxychloroquine, presents an opportunity, some feel, to massively treat the virus before a vaccine comes out.
I agree with my co-#ELBI fellow @syramadad regarding remdesivir, “It’s not a blockbuster drug…”. On @CNN just now. It may reduce the length of illness in some, might save some lives. It’s not a pill for home use; it’s not a silver bullet. It’s not and end point. @GWSMHS #covid
— James P. Phillips, MD (@DrPhillipsMD) May 3, 2020
Helpful study tracing 2761 close contacts of 100 confirmed cases of #COVID19
1. 0 transmission to close contacts after 5 days of symptoms in index case
2. Highest risk of transmission to family and household members
3. Pre-symptomatic exposures at riskhttps://t.co/Qdoqo3HNMr
— Isaac Bogoch (@BogochIsaac) May 2, 2020
Even the National Guard is Contact Tracing now.
150 members of the Iowa National Guard are helping with contact tracing.
— Megan Reuther (@MeganReuther) May 11, 2020
Over 100 Soldiers and Airmen from the Utah National Guard were activated to support three separate missions across the state: COVID-19 testing, Utah Health Emergency Response Teams, and contact tracing.#InThisTogether #COVID19 #NeighborsHelpingNeighbors pic.twitter.com/YtUEeic568
— Utah National Guard (@UTNationalGuard) May 12, 2020
