Will HIPAA Impair Our Ability To Fight Coronavirus?

This is much like military secrecy. This kind of secrecy generally is to protect our troops and technology. Todays military secrecy is generally about protecting the politicians and brass's incompetence and mistakes.  National cohesiveness and trust in government is our highest national security even beyond the military. Now if you clamp down on  secrecy to protect the brass and policians you just might demoralize the country. 

If in explaining massive contagion, HIPPAA seems to be the go-too tool to not explain what is going on in a contagion...then the government will lose trust in the eyes of the public. 

Believe me at this point, we need the politicians and our medical officials to always tell us the truth, even the  horrible truths, much more than we need a coronavirus vaccine.    

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA or the Kennedy–Kassebaum Act^[1][2]) was enacted by the 104th United States Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton in 1996. It was created primarily to modernize the flow of healthcare information, stipulate how Personally Identifiable Information maintained by the healthcare and healthcare insurance industries should be protected from fraud and theft, and address limitations on healthcare insurance coverage.^[3]

The act consists of five titles. Title I of HIPAA protects health insurance coverage for workers and their families when they change or lose their jobs.^[4] Title II of HIPAA, known as the Administrative Simplification (AS) provisions, requires the establishment of national standards for electronic health care transactions and national identifiers for providers, health insurance plans, and employers.^[5] Title III sets guidelines for pre-tax medical spending accounts, Title IV sets guidelines for group health plans, and Title V governs company-owned life insurance policies.

Cities and firms begin disclosing patients' workplaces as Japan records third Diamond Princess death

Kyodo, Staff Report

Feb 23, 2020

Japan on Sunday recorded the third death of a Japanese national who had been on the coronavirus-hit Diamond Princess cruise ship as infections linked to the virus continued to rise nationwide.

Some municipalities and companies have also started disclosing information about where infected people work.

The health ministry said Sunday a man in his 80s who had been on board the cruise ship had died of pneumonia. However, the ministry did not say whether the man was infected with the COVID-19 virus nor whether he was a passenger or crew member because it had not obtained consent from the deceased’s family....