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As the world scrambles to stop the coronavirus pandemic, governments and technology companies have begun exploring new partnerships to track the spread of COVID-19 and target preventative interventions. Emerging reports about these collaborations have sparked a debate: do you want privacy or public health? Despite its beguiling simplicity, this question presents a false choice. Rather than accept this trade-off at face value, we must instead recognize that responding to the pandemic effectively and democratically — protecting health and privacy —requires reimagining how personal data is collected and governed. Rather than privacy being an inhibitor of public health (or vice versa), our eroded privacy stems from the same exploitative logics that undergird our inadequate capacity to fund and provide public health. Addressing the pandemic requires first addressing these underlying forms of exploitation.