How Hong Kong can improve contact tracing to achieve ‘zero Covid’

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How Hong Kong can improve contact tracing to achieve ‘zero Covid’

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Mainland China’s approach rests on population-wide testing and a powerful big data tracing platform. Hong Kong is not measuring up here. A system that uploads visitor footprints to government servers, sensors to automatically record entries and exits, and a phased approach to implementation could all help
Alexis Wong & Lucy Kwan Published: 6:45am, 13 Mar, 2022 on SCMP https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/ar ... 3ca5903f52

People are still debating the relative merits of the “zero Covid” and “living with Covid” approaches. Hong Kong has pursued the “zero Covid” path in alignment with mainland China but has failed to achieve the same results. The city’s public health system has been stretched to capacity during the fifth wave, raising questions about what is lacking in our strategy.

China’s “dynamic zero Covid” strategy involves the timely identification of Covid-19 cases, regardless of whether they display symptoms. The spread of disease is then contained by quickly deploying public health measures, leading to minimum mortality.

This strategy rests on two pillars: population-wide testing and a powerful big data tracing platform. Hong Kong is not measuring up here. To assuage public concern over possible personal data leaks, the early version of the government’s “Leave Home Safe” contact tracing app only stored data on the user’s mobile phone.

How Hong Kong’s new coronavirus contact-tracing app works

The latest 3.1.0 version has enhanced functionalities, but only allows the government to identify the real names of those who visited a premise indirectly and it cannot retrieve data from the scanners located at the premises without the assistance of the premise operators. Only then can the government start tracing people who visited a particular venue and try to truncate a transmission chain.
This is highly inefficient. The government should replace the current system with one that facilitates the immediate, direct and automatic upload of visitor footprints from the designated premises to the government’s central servers.

We further suggest that sensors be used in place of QR code scanning to make the visit registration process more convenient. This would also avoid errors such as forgetting to press the “leave” button. The technologies we advocate are readily available, given the competence of our information technology talent and telecoms carriers. However, the government is probably hesitant to launch such a system for fear of a public outcry. Both Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data Ada Chung Lai-ling and her redecessor, Stephen Wong Kai-yi, have said that the public interest, including public health, can at times take precedence over personal data privacy.

We are confident that our Office of the Privacy Commissioner is one of the best in the world and will stringently vet the contact tracing system, and that the government will not knowingly leak data. In fact, the anti-pandemic measures being carried out now under the Prevention and Control of Disease Ordinance are all enacted under the principle that public security overrides personal data privacy and individual freedom.

To gauge public acceptance, we recently conducted a simple poll and obtained about 500 responses about the installation of encrypted real-name automatic tracing functions on mobile phones. While the poll did not use probability sampling, it used a “snowball” sampling method with different weights assigned to balance out the sample sizes of different age groups and arrive at more accurate and objective results.

The survey results show that about 80 per cent of people support or do not oppose the installation of encrypted real-name automatic tracing functions. About two-thirds of those in the 15-39 age group supported it, while close to 90 per cent of those in the 40-59 and 60-and-over age groups did so. We also explored the deliberations of some young people and found that some were “indifferent”, neither embracing nor objecting to the proposal, which offers indirect evidence that it is not unworkable.

The government could consider a phased approach to implementation according to the acceptance level within the age group and the popularity of designated premises based on visit frequencies.
At the same time, institutions and people involved in ensuring data privacy should work diligently and professionally to ensure that data security – from its collection, application, storage and final destruction – is preserved.

Hong Kong is a densely populated city, with intense criss-crossing of social interactions. Before any definitive mutation of the Covid-19 virus into an ordinary flu or the arrival of proven medication for Covid-19, we cannot resume normal life and be assured of our health. Until such time, a cloud-based real-time footprint tracing system with automatic upload and big data analysis capabilities using state-of-the-art information technology is indispensable.

This will greatly reduce public inconvenience, reduce tracing fraud and errors, and enable the government to speedily and accurately identify potential virus carriers, so as to expediently cut off the transmission chain and provide patients with timely treatment. Targeting the sources of contagion is the key to truly achieving “zero Covid”. If we do not do this, all our attempts will prove futile.

Alexis Wong is a retired listed company senior executive with over 30 years of experience in the financial industry and five years in the hospitality industry
Lucy M.S. Kwan is adjunct assistant professor at HKU’s Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science and an executive committee member of the Tanner Hill Workshop

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Re: How Hong Kong can improve contact tracing to achieve ‘zero Covid’

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https://epaper.tkww.hk/a/202203/01/AP62 ... d1b6b.html
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