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WASHINGTON – Contact tracking apps are a key part of getting a country open again, and not being able to actively track people who came in contact with Covid-19 patients has serious public health implications, the Minister said. K. Shanmugam in comments on the need for such applications on Friday (May 1).
“Not everyone can be in a state of suspended animation, everyone housed in our rooms. If you don’t die from the virus, you will die from economic stagnation,” said Shanmugam during an online discussion on how cities include Singapore and New York City. they are fighting the coronavirus.
“It is necessary to open up, but in a controlled manner, and the response is a massive test and a massive follow-up,” he added at the event organized by the American magazine Foreign Policy.
Mr. Shanmugam’s comments on the tradeoffs between privacy and public health come amid recent concerns and statements by ministers that not enough people in Singapore have downloaded the national contact tracking app TraceTogether.
Mr. Shanmugam said: “There are individual privacy rights, but if you don’t take care of yourself and cannot actively contact trace … the healthcare worker who has to take care of you is at risk. You are putting other people at risk. You are potentially overwhelming the health care system – you may be denying adequate health care to others who have been more responsible than you.
“If you weigh all this up, I think it boils down to contact tracking, probably with the type of app that resides on your phone,” he said.
“This is one of those situations where I think people will be prepared, if it is properly explained that health problems are important and should be given priority.”
About one in six people have downloaded the TraceTogether app in Singapore. But at least three-quarters of the population should have the app installed for it to be effective, National Development Minister Lawrence Wong said Friday.
Countries around the world are creating or using contact tracking applications, but adoption rates and deployment speeds have varied. Some, like South Korea, use the app extensively, while others in Europe, like France, have been held back so far for privacy reasons.
In Friday’s discussion, former New York City Deputy Mayor and former Bloomberg Chief Executive Dan Doctoroff said that as long as governments were honest about how the data was collected and used, privacy concerns should not. be an insurmountable problem.
“The most important thing is to do the bare minimum to invade people’s privacy, be very clear and transparent about how the data is used. And ultimately, make the benefits significantly outweigh the costs,” said Doctoroff, who with Google co-founded a technology startup focused on improving life in the city.
Mr. Shanmugam said: “There is nothing an application like this finds that technology platforms don’t know about you.”
Doctoroff and Shanmugam also discussed other challenges cities face, including maintaining isolated patients in the midst of a spatial crisis, and how cities, displacement, and workplaces would transform in the wake of the pandemic.
States in the United States are increasing their contact tracking capabilities, but prefer manual tracking by paid staff. Although the tech giants are working on apps, they are unlikely to be as accepted as in other countries.
A poll by the Washington Post and the University of Maryland this week found that nearly 60 percent of Americans are unwilling to use a smartphone app that would inform users if they were in contact with a Covid-19 patient. .
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