Since December last year, the novel COVID-19 outbreak began and
continues to expand worldwide, resulting in loss of lives, impact on global
health, economy and so forth. All nations are tirelessly putting
their effort to stop the spread of the coronavirus. While this pandemic
is hard to control, Singapore is tackling COVID-19
using its strongest weapon i.e. technology. This country seems to be
using more digital products than other nations to contain and track the virus spread.
Below are some of the technologies, that Singapore uses to tackle COVID-19.
Surveillance
Singapore was one of the
few countries, which successfully reduced the spread of COVID-19 infection via
various tools and data. It has already installed surveillance tools like CCTV
cameras at airports and public locations. By
combining the CCTV visualization data with the Internet of Things (IoT),
authorities monitor individuals who are quarantined. For instance, the
government has made it mandatory that residents returning
from abroad should undergo 14 days of self-isolation. Here CCTV instantly reports the residents if and when they go out. Residents who violate the rules are at the risk of either
being fined or sentenced to 6 months in jail.
Trace Together
Singaporean Government
Technology Agency (GovTech) has developed a mobile app - TraceTogether. The app is capturing
anonymous data of people who come in proximity,
using Bluetooth technology. Therefore a memory data of the
people who pass by each other in daily life is stored by the app. The public of Singapore is encouraged to
install this app by its government.
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| How Tracetogether works |
When someone
is COVID-19 positive, the app helps to tracks all those
who has come in contact with the infected individual. While the app generates data
to track the spread, detection and prevention of possible local transmissions is
done by
identifying all those who have come into contact and quarantining them.
Online Screening
Singapore
clinicians and computer scientists have created an online system for the public
to self-check if they have COVID-19 infection and to decide if they need
medication. This online symptom checker asks the user a series of questions with options such as their age, travel
history, symptoms if any, etc. Then the participant’s one-click response to each
question is collected. This collected data provides an overview of the public
concerns regarding COVID-19 to the ministry of health. The government then
addresses the major concerns of people and tries to reduce the panic governing
the pandemic.
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| Online Screening Tool |
Public Advisory
The Singapore government
introduced an effective way to communicate with the people using the popular tool i.e., WhatsApp and its verified data
transfer methodology. Using this method, one-way WhatsApp messages are sent to the public of Singapore.
This effective public
advisory prevents the spread of misinformation. There are 4 official languages
in Singapore – Chinese, English, Malay, and Tamil. The
National WhatsApp messages are being sent in different languages according to
the person’s choice. This translation of government-approved COVID-19 messages
is possible by using artificial intelligence (AI) tool called “Form.sg” on delivering
verified data to the public, the government can encode the chat to the cloud for
future needs.
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| Singapore Govt Whatsapp forum |
Crowd Sourcing
Singapore is also using
tech websites to provide supplies to people in quarantine. For example, MaskGoshare provides data on the people in need of supplies. Using their postal code, donors
can contribute to the neighboring community.
Other websites like maskgowhere and ContributeSG the government to segregate and offer
information for collecting and donating masks. In
addition to this, the website NCovChat is
providing answers to COVID-19 queries from the general public refers to
verified information.
Prediction Models
Singapore
has made several changes to its health care sector using the data collected
from past epidemics like SARS, Swine flu and Zika virus. For
instance, the collected data helps in making
decisions such as building special wards at the hospital. These
experiences of combating outbreaks in the past and having corresponding health
care data, are helpings the government to fight the coronavirus outbreak. The
Ministry of health releases Corona infection summary and various data depictions online
to keep the general public well informed on the situation.
While we are still learning more about
COVID-19 virus spread and preventative measures, innovations in technology can
aid in combating the virus spread. If you have an idea for an application that
could be of use in the battle against Covid19, contact us to bring it to
reality.
Kiruba
Solution Consultant
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