Contact Tracing of Persons Exposed to COIVD-19 Risk who Had Opted Out of TraceTogether

Ms Joan Pereira asked the Minister for Health how can the Ministry conduct contact tracing on persons who opt out of TraceTogether and who are later found to have exposed themselves and others to the risk of contracting COVID-19.

MOH conducts contact tracing for all COVID-19 cases. The process primarily involves detailed interviews with cases and their contacts to form a comprehensive activity map about the individual’s movements and which persons they had been in contact with, until their isolation.

TraceTogether, together with SafeEntry, makes the process much faster and more accurate. TraceTogether is especially useful for identifying unknown contacts in public places that we would not otherwise be able to identify, or contacts that interviewees were unable to recall. So for someone who has opted out of TraceTogether, the process is slower, and thus the risk of onward transmission is higher because we will take a longer time to quarantine close contacts. But we will continue to try our best.

The TraceTogether Programme requires active participation from as many people as possible for effective contact tracing. To achieve greater coverage and participation, from 17 May 2021, persons who wish to enter a venue where SafeEntry is mandatory can only perform SafeEntry check-ins using their TraceTogether app or Token. These are venues that experience a higher throughput of visitors, such as malls, and where people are likely to be in close proximity for prolonged periods, such as restaurants and gyms. This will strengthen digital contact tracing and help us to better limit the spread of community cases.