THE QUICK LESSON ON CONTACT TRACING

Contact tracing was new to HSTF and, with this being Singapore's main defence against COVID-19, it was crucial that they got it right the first time. Contact tracing served two purposes. The first was to establish the source of infection by backward tracing to track COVID-19 patients' activities from the time symptoms appeared. The second was to break the chain of transmission as quickly as possible by forward tracing to identify all close contacts.

As HSTF became more familiar with the end-to-end contact tracing process, they soon realised that effective contact tracing depended heavily on activity mapping. Activity maps were important in backward tracing for epidemiology analysis, and in forward tracing for identification and isolation of close contacts. The information in the activity maps could be pieced together to provide a detailed and accurate picture for studying the distribution and spread of the virus.

CONTACT TRACING FLOW