TraceTogether & SafeEntry Have Cut Down Contact Tracing Time by More Than Half

By
Boon Hun
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Singapore’s TraceTogether pickup rate has reportedly increased to 80%, way above the 70% nobody thought could be reached at the end of last year.

If you’re one of the remaining 20%, here’s one more reason why you should take it up as well.

TraceTogether & SafeEntry Have Cut Down Contact Tracing Time by More Than Half

Here’s how Singapore’s Covid-19 strategy works:

Find one case, contact trace immediately and hope it’s fast enough to contain the cluster before it explodes like the US.

The faster (and more accurate) your contact tracing is, the earlier you can identify and contain undetected cases.

And with TraceTogether and SafeEntry, the time needed for contact tracing is reduced by more than half.

According to Associate Professor Vernon Lee, the head of MOH’s contact tracing centre, the moment a patient is confirmed to quarantining him, and his close contacts, could take four days.

With SafeEntry and TraceTogether, that amount of time can be reduced to fewer than two days.

It could even be completed within a day, depending on how complicated the case is.

A Great Help

According to a contact tracer of 9 months, Mr Narasimhan Rao, it was very “tedious” in the early days.

Sometimes, people give inaccurate information and they have to confirm the information obtained through a variety of other sources, such as from family and friends.

Patients usually don’t intentionally give inaccurate information, he added.

Another contact tracer, Mr Lin Zhaoquan, said that patients usually can’t remember the finer details.

For example, one confirmed case that was interviewed recalled that he was on leave on certain dates.

However, when investigated further, contact tracers realised that he actually worked the morning shift at that time.

SafeEntry and TraceTogether data also verified that he was at work and identified a few close contacts who are at risk that would otherwise be missed.

Professor Lee urges everyone in Singapore to make use of the two technologies, despite fears that the data will be used for other matters.

The technologies are there to protect you and your loved ones, he said, and every minute spent on contact tracing means one minute more for the virus to transmit.

TraceTogether & Crime

For those who are concerned about the usage of TraceTogether data, it will only be used for contact tracing as well as serious crimes.

So what constitutes a “serious crime”?

Here are the seven categories of serious offences:

  1. Offences involving the use or possession of corrosive substances, offensive/dangerous weapons, e.g possession of firearms, armed robbery with the use of firearms.
  2. Terrorism-related offences under the Terrorism (Suppression of Bombings) Act, Terrorism (Suppression of Financing) Act, and Terrorism (Suppression of Misuse of Radioactive Material).
  3. Crimes against persons where the victim is seriously hurt or killed e.g murder, culpable homicide not amounting to murder, voluntarily causing grievous hurt (where the victim’s injury is of a life-threatening nature).
  4. Drug trafficking offences that attract the death penalty.
  5. Escape from legal custody where there is a reasonable belief that the subject will cause imminent harm to others.
  6. Kidnapping
  7. Serious sexual offences, e.g rape, sexual assault by penetration.

The legislation will be introduced in the next Parliamentary session in February on a Certificate of Urgency.

Meanwhile, the privacy notice of TraceTogether has changed.

You can read more about that here.

Featured Image: kandl stock / Shutterstock.com (Image is for illustration purpose only)

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Boon Hun
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