Covid-19 crisis Is the Safe Entry measures giving good results?
I read a news report today about the covid cases, possibly quoting from a news release from the ministry of health.

It mentioned the places where the infected patients had visited and asked members of the public who had visited these places to be alert about the possibility of being infected. 

However, it assured the public not to worry, as it does not necessary mean that they had been infected. It further advised the public to see the doctor if they have some of the symptoms of covid, such as experience difficulty in breathing or fever. 

I was quite confused about the message that the news report was trying to convey. 

If there was no need for the public to panic, why mention the places that the infected patients had visited?

If a patient had some of the symptoms mentioned, surely they would have visited the doctor, regardless of whether they had visited the infected places?

The news report also mentioned that the close contacts, possibly identified by the Safe Entry records in the database, will be approached by the contact tracing ambassadors. But it did not mention how many people were identified from the database or the outcome of past tracing of these close contacts.

I suspect that the Safe Entry recording is probably not producing useful data, in spite of the large cost of implementing this measure. It probably involve several thousand of ambassadors who man the stations to record the Safe Entry data. I estimate the cost of these ambassadors to be several tens of million dollars a month.

Apart from the manpower cost, it is also adding  lot of inconvenience to the public who visits shops, malls and workplaces.

I hope that the ministry of health will publish the results of the contact tracing efforts to justify the cost of carrying out the Safe Entry measures. 

Tan Kin Lian

 

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