{"id":91145,"date":"2020-05-21T18:22:21","date_gmt":"2020-05-21T18:22:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-health-agencies-alerting-law-enforcement-about-coronavirus-cases\/"},"modified":"2020-05-21T18:22:21","modified_gmt":"2020-05-21T18:22:21","slug":"colorado-health-agencies-alerting-law-enforcement-about-coronavirus-cases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-health-agencies-alerting-law-enforcement-about-coronavirus-cases\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado health agencies alerting law enforcement about coronavirus cases"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=20095a23-2489-43d5-bacf-c7c3ef1dbfc5&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"1800\" height=\"1011\" alt=\"Courtesy photoA worker at a coronavirus drive-up testing site in Montrose.\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Courtesy photoA worker at a coronavirus drive-up testing site in Montrose.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>Several local public health agencies in Colorado are sharing information with emergency dispatchers about households where people have tested positive for the new coronavirus.<\/p>\n<p>The agencies say the practice provides a warning to first responders to take extra precautions when dispatched to those homes, but<a href=\"https:\/\/coloradosun.com\/2020\/05\/20\/colorado-tracking-infections-law-enforcement-information-sharing\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> privacy advocates <\/a>are raising concerns.<\/p>\n<p>Authorities in Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Denver, Douglas and El Paso counties confirmed to <em>The Colorado Sun<\/em> that they follow the practice, first brought to light Tuesday in a national Associated Press investigation. The AP found that coronavirus information sharing between public health officials and emergency dispatchers is widespread across the U.S.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s just another layer of protection first responders can be armed with when they are going to those calls for service,\u201d said Jacqueline Kirby, a spokeswoman for the El Paso County Sheriff\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n<p>Sharing the information is legal under state and federal law, officials say, but privacy experts worry that doing so is dangerous and unnecessary and that it could even lead to a situation where people are afraid to seek out testing out of fear that their medical history may be disclosed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt seems to me it\u2019s just a pointless invasion of privacy that really serves no purpose,\u201d said Mark Silverstein, legal director of the ACLU of Colorado.<\/p>\n<p><em class=\"mwc_headline2-18\"><a href=\"https:\/\/coloradosun.com\/2020\/05\/20\/colorado-tracking-infections-law-enforcement-information-sharing\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read more at coloradosun.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em class=\"mwc_shirttail\"><a href=\"https:\/\/coloradosun.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported, journalist-owned news outlet exploring issues of statewide interest. Sign up for a newsletter and read more at coloradosun.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>practice has been carried out in at least six counties, and ACLU of Colorado is worried<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":91146,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[685,13,28,60,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-91145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-coronavirus-covid-19","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91145"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=91145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}