COVID-19 Close Contact Management: An Evolution of Operations Harnessing the Digital Edge

AbstractSingapore, like many other nations globally, had to contend with significant caseloads arising from the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. This paper focuses on using technology as an intervention for pandemic management. With scant scientific evidence on effective medications and vaccinations (i.e., pharmaceutical interventions) initially, disease containment strategies predominated during the early phases. Non-pharmaceutical interventions were critical in slowing disease transmission and preventing public healthcare institutions from being overwhelmed. Such interventions could be broadly divided into case-based interventions (e.g., contact tracing and quarantining of close contacts) and population-based measures (e.g., mask use and social distancing). The paper describes Singapore ’s experience in the operational implementation of contact-based interventions, and illustrates how harnessing the digital edge enabled fast, accurate, resource-efficient, and flexible execution of ground operations. Singapore applied digital technology and developed an integrated system to facili tate issuance and acknowledgement of quarantine orders, submission of COVID-19 test results, and collection of antigen rapid test kits at the population level. Data was obtained from this proprietary centralised, automated platform. The paper demonstrates how such simple, yet elegant systems could h ave a direct impact on disease transmission in an outbreak setting and on population healt...
Source: Journal of Medical Systems - Category: Information Technology Source Type: research