The Government’s recent announcement that everyone in Singapore might soon receive a wearable device for contact tracing drew impassioned debate over privacy concerns. The choice to use the device or the app should remain voluntary. It has been mentioned that the current take-up rate of the TraceTogether app is far below the 75 per cent of the population that should install it for it to be effective. But digital contact tracing is not an all-or-nothing affair. A report from an Oxford University team put up on the university’s website in Apr suggests that contact tracing apps can have an effect at all levels of uptake. Below a 60 per cent uptake, the app helps but needs to be combined with other containment and prevention methods, such as social distancing, to halt a pandemic. Moreover, we are already using a comprehensive suite of measures alongside digital contact tracing, which flatten the curve even further. Digital contact tracing is more of a shot in the arm; things such as mass testing, social distancing and personal hygiene are the real muscle of pandemic response.... Continue Reading