President Joe Biden’s transition team may have been presented with a COVID-19 tracking app which could detect if users were exposed to the virus and divide them into groups based on their health status, according to a new report.
A PowerPoint presentation obtained by the Washington Free Beacon was saved with the file name “2020-12-14 Shield Biden Covid Team”, suggesting that members of Biden’s transition team may have been presented with the plan in December.
The slideshow outlines how the SHIELD system used by the University of Illinois tracks COVID-19 exposures using individuals’ phones and divides them into three groups: yellow for those who tested negative for coronavirus, orange for those exposed to someone who tested positive, and red for those who tested positive themselves.
There is no proof anyone in the Biden administration saw the presentation, despite it apparently being targeted towards federal officials. The White House did not respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller.
The school “links building access” to the app, and some local businesses have followed suit. Only individuals in the yellow category are allowed to enter certain establishments. (RELATED: ‘Break The Resistance Down’: Former DOJ Official Supports Vaccine Passports Banning People From ‘Things Their Peers Can Do’)
A slide shows an approved and disapproved individual in the SHIELD contact tracing app. (SHIELD presentation/Washington Free Beacon)
The app uses Bluetooth technology to determine who has been in close contact with COVID-positive persons. SHIELD has made University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign the “safest place in the state and probably in the country,” the presentation claims.
A slide claims SHIELD has made the University of Illinois the safest place in the state, and maybe the whole country. (SHIELD presentation/Washington Free Beacon)
The system uses rapid tests which provide results in under 12 hours, and the presentation boasts that SHIELD can perform contact tracing and isolate positive cases in under three hours after receiving results. University researchers have used the system to track which cohorts are testing positive more frequently, change policies as needed and “discipline”, according to the PowerPoint.
In only about five weeks, the federal government could set up a nation-wide “surveillance testing” program using SHIELD, according to the slides. It suggests that funds from the government’s COVID-19 relief bills be used to set up the testing system in dozens of the country’s biggest cities. (RELATED: A Weepy CDC Director Insists America Is Facing ‘Doom.’ Do The Facts Match The Hysteria?)
SHIELD can be used to help provide a “SWAT team response” to local COVID-19 hotspots, the presentation reads. The system is eerily similar to the one implemented by the Chinese Communist Party, which divides citizens into three color groups based on health status and tracks their every movement to prevent the spread of the virus.
In recent days, it has been reported that the Biden administration is considering the development of a vaccine passport to further open up certain parts of the economy. Individuals who have been fully vaccinated would then have access to public gatherings and activities that non-vaccinated people do not. (RELATED: Will You Need A ‘Vaccine Passport’ To Return To Normal Life?)
Such a system has been considered in other parts of the world, and has most notably been put in place in Israel. New York state has developed their own vaccine passport known as “Excelsior Pass”, which grants New Yorkers access to things like professional sporting events.