ON August 3, senior minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob announced that the government mandated the use of the MySejahtera application for all businesses nationwide.

Since then, we have learned about a number of incidents when the police fined businesses and individuals who did not comply with the usage of the tracing app, as well as the manual check-in attendance log book.

Authorities had vehemently convinced the public that the tracing app will stop the outbreak of pandemic.

Due to superstition in technology-solutionism, many people and institutions believe the tracing app will work without questioning the flaws behind it. Therefore, one could easily hear the argument or slogan, “Use the app, protect ourselves” etc, since the launch of the tracing-app.

Very recently, I had attended a social dinner with four other persons at which everyone fully complied with the government SOP, including the check-in with MySejahtera.

On the next morning, one of them (let’s call him Mr A), had a Covid-19 swab test during a medical check-up at a private hospital before hospitalisation and was unfortunately tested positive. A was sent to Sg Buloh Covid-19 treatment centre immediately, and his wife instantly informed all of those who had attended the dinner about the situation. 

Two days after A was sent to the Sg Buloh quarantine centre, a Health Ministry (MOH) officer contacted A’s wife to arrange for her Covid-19 swab test and home quarantine surveillance.

The wife informed the officer about the dinner event, including contact details of all participants, but was told that all those participants would no longer be categorised as close contact under the new MOH guideline, and consequently would not be required for further testing.

Unsatisfied with the first official response, I contacted the National Crisis Preparedness and Response Centre (CPRC) MOH myself via their hotline for the second time, reciting the same details and asked for advice, but the reply was still the same, that I did not qualify as a close contact. The officer advised me to get a swab test at a private hospital if I was still concerned.

The most paradoxical thing is that the moment the private clinics and hospitals that I rang to learned about my situation, my request for a swab test appointment was rejected, as they, ironically, categorised me as a close contact of the Covid-19 patient, which revealed an interesting situation of varying screening and testing practises that do not necessarily align with the SOPs given by the MOH.

Bureaucracy aside, what is the point of only offering Covid-19 tests to those who have low or no risk of contracting the disease? Isn’t the purpose of these tests to identify as many patients as possible? What is the rationale behind the position taken by these private medical establishments? Was it an ethical stand or simply a decision that was commercially driven? 

Worse still, none of the participants of the dinner gathering received any risk alerts from MySejahtera app, let alone the summon for swab test.

In our case, A’s wife became the sole responsible person to keep us informed of the potential risk of us being exposed to it. The experience had deepened my doubts on the efficacy of the tracing-app, as per my earlier article dated 15 June titled “How useful are Covid-19 tracing apps, really?”

In any modern society, people commute heavily, thus every one of us easily visits two to three places including the usual workplace per day outside our home.

In addition, given the huge number of daily new infections, if the app does function as well as it has intended to, would it not send out alerts more frequently now that the number of newly infected cases has increased? In the case that it does, will it not ignite more psychological stresses rather than calm the fears for the virus?

Now, we must ask for the reason why the government overlooked the possibility of this unintended consequence? Could it be that they simply jumped on the worldwide bandwagon to offer technological placebos, or could there be other reasons?

Compared with other countries, why have Malaysian authorities gone to a greater extent to push for the use of the app, by penalising those who do not comply with the usage of the tracing app with fines in the range of RM1,000, and rewarding those who do with RM50 one-time voucher, before validating the efficacy of the app? 

Furthermore, why the moralising tone in promoting app usage as individuals’ responsibility when in reality it seems to have failed to deliver?

It seems to me that the public might have been fed with wrong information about the contact-tracing app. The authoritarian tactics have effectively misled the public into trusting the tracing app with little questioning. Some have even gone as far as morally policing and grassing those who did not use the contact tracing app.

In return, the public has sacrificed personal privacy for a totally failed tracing app. Of course, including those who have been sworn at and scolded for failing to use the app.

The authorities should be held accountable and required to explain to the public regarding the failure of the contact-tracing app, in all aspects from technical glitches to implementation details.

Given that the tracing-app has failed entirely, the government must revise the mandating implementation. When living and dealing with complex pandemic, it is acceptable for anyone, including the authorities, to overlook many aspects and make wrong decisions.

However, the authorities must admit the mistake in policy and rectify it at the fastest pace possible. I suggest that the government consider refunding the fines paid for non-compliance fines, and apologise openly to those penalised, due to the total failure of the contact-tracing app.

Finally, let me remind the government that an authoritarian approach is never ever a good way to fight and curb pandemic.

In contrast, a transparent policy coupled with adequate information campaigns that raise public health awareness, will be more effective at driving the society to work collectively and cooperatively as we strive to strike a balance between lives and livelihoods. – December 21, 2020.

* Chong Kok Boon is a member of Agora Society. He is a self-declared Peter Pan who advocates science in forging a more democratic and humane society.