Reviews on Necessity of TraceTogether and SafeEntry Scans
Ministry of HealthSpeakers
Summary
This question concerns Mr Leon Perera’s inquiry into the frequency of reviews for TraceTogether and SafeEntry, the metrics for their necessity, and the quantification of compliance burdens on businesses. Senior Minister of State Dr Janil Puthucheary stated that these systems are regularly reviewed and remain essential for enforcing vaccination-differentiated safe management measures (VDS) to protect vulnerable unvaccinated individuals. He noted that automated contact tracing is estimated to have saved 290 deaths and prevented 144,000 cases in Singapore from September 2021 to January 2022. The Ministry views these existing systems as the least burdensome and most cost-effective way to achieve public health outcomes compared to establishing new infrastructures. Consequently, the systems will only be phased out once VDS is no longer required and COVID-19 has transitioned from an epidemic to an endemic state.
Transcript
2 Mr Leon Perera asked the Minister for Health (a) how regularly does the Ministry conduct reviews on the necessity of TraceTogether and SafeEntry; (b) what are the metrics that the Ministry considers when making this regular determination that TraceTogether and SafeEntry are still necessary; and (c) whether the Ministry (i) quantifies the impact of the compliance burden on business owners, the effect on productivity and electricity consumption in general in enforcing these requirements and (ii) takes into account this burden in the metrics.
The Senior Minister of State for Health (Dr Janil Puthucheary) (for the Minister for Health): Sir, as we have described in previous responses to Parliamentary Questions, TraceTogether and SafeEntry continue to play important roles in our pandemic response system. TraceTogether and SafeEntry enable verification checks into venues or activities where vaccination-differentiated safe management measures (VDS) are in force. This is necessary to protect unvaccinated persons who remain at higher risk of severe disease.
We aim to keep rules and requirements simple, and we regularly review the need for these. We will continue to rationalise and simplify our safe management measures.
Mr Speaker: Mr Leon Perera.
Mr Leon Perera (Aljunied): I thank the Senior Minister of State for his answer. Just one supplementary question. Given that the compliance burden for TraceTogether and SafeEntry is not insignificant – it impacts time, productivity and so on – what would be the criterion or criteria that the Ministry would use to make the decision to phase it out? At what point will that actually happen?
Dr Janil Puthucheary: I thank the Member for his questions. Indeed, measures that affect public health and safety do have a compliance burden. This is not unique to TraceTogether and SafeEntry. Neither is it unique to the COVID-19 situation. If we look at, for example, the automobile industry, the use of seat belts is a cost burden, but we do it now after many decades of education because it has proven its worth.
So, really, the issue is whether or not the approach that we are taking has proven its worth. I hope the Member will agree that it has the ability to issue Health Risk Warnings and Notices very quickly in the face of a rapidly progressing pandemic; is an important public health measure. These have managed to keep our case fatality rate low as we have slowed the spread and allowed people to self-isolate and seek help very early on in the illness. As long as we are able to do that and to demonstrate an effectiveness of using TraceTogether, SafeEntry and VDS in our public health response, then I hope the Member will agree that the ability to save lives, prevent morbidity and mortality through this disease is a beneficial outcome and is worth paying that compliance cost and compliance burden for.
Studies in other parts of the world, there was a UK study that was published looking at this, looking at some modelling and the extent to which this automated contact tracing approach saves lives, prevents cases, and we have every reason to believe the same is true here in Singapore.
The study that was done in the UK. If we extrapolate that approach to our situation here, the estimate is that between September 2021 and January 2022, comparing similar data-sets over about those four, five months, the contact tracing approach that we have taken in Singapore may have saved about 290 deaths and slowed down the progression to avoid about 144,000 cases. I hope the Member would agree that these are useful outcomes.
When will we no longer need such an approach, when will we phase out and what may the criteria be, it is a bit too early to tell. We need to wait until we no longer need VDS, we need to wait until we are quite sure that the pandemic and COVID-19 is no longer epidemic but is endemic. We have not reached that point yet. It is very hard to say with some degree of certainty what that date will be. But I think we have explained before that as long as we need the measures in place – the public health measures, the VDS – then, today, the easiest way and the least burdensome way and the cheapest way for businesses, for us to roll out these measures, is to continue with the TraceTogether and SafeEntry systems that we have in place, rather than standing up a whole new system and a whole new infrastructure in order to get those outcomes. So, when we no longer need those measures, then we would stand down the systems.