Coronavirus: Contact-tracing apps key to country opening up again, says Shanmugam

Apps that can trace a person who has been near a Covid-19 patient are vital in protecting the health service and getting a country to open up again, said Law and Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam.

Mr Shanmugam told an online forum: "We can't all be in a state of suspended animation, all staying in our rooms. If you don't die of the virus, you'll die of economic stagnation.

"You need to open up, but in a controlled way, and the answer is massive testing and massive tracing."

Mr Shanmugam's comments on Friday at a discussion on how Singapore and New York are battling the virus came amid concerns that not enough people in Singapore have downloaded the contact-tracing app TraceTogether.

He noted: "There are individual rights of privacy, but if you don't take care and cannot actively contact trace... the healthcare worker who has to take care of you is at risk. You're putting other people at risk.

"You're potentially overwhelming the healthcare system. You're possibly denying proper healthcare to others who have been more responsible than you have been.

"If you weigh all of this, I think it comes down on the side of contact tracing, probably with the kind of app that resides in your phone."

In Singapore, only around 17 per cent of the population have downloaded the app, but 75 per cent or so should have it installed for it to be effective, said National Development Minister Lawrence Wong on Friday.

Countries around the world are building or using contact-tracing apps, but adoption rates and roll-out speeds have varied. Some like South Korea use the app widely, while others such as France have held back so far over privacy concerns.

At the discussion, which was hosted by United States magazine Foreign Policy, former New York deputy mayor Dan Doctoroff said that as long as governments were honest about how data was being collected and used, privacy concerns can be overcome.

"The most important thing is to do the minimum necessary to invade people's privacy, to be very clear and transparent about how data is being used. And ultimately, to make the case that the benefits significantly outweigh the costs," said Mr Doctoroff, a former Bloomberg chief executive who linked with Google to co-found a technology start-up focusing on improving city living.

Mr Shanmugam added: "There's nothing that any app like this will find that tech platforms don't already know about you."

Mr Doctoroff and Mr Shanmugam also discussed other challenges, including keeping patients in isolation amid a space crunch and how cities, commutes and workplaces will be transformed in the wake of the pandemic.

States across the US are ramping up contact-tracing capabilities, but with a preference for manual tracing done by paid staff. Although tech giants are working on apps, they are unlikely to be embraced as widely as in other countries.

A poll by The Washington Post and University of Maryland last Wednesday found that nearly 60 per cent of Americans are not willing to use a smartphone app that would inform users if they were in contact with a Covid-19 patient.