To study how much protection a vaccine offers, link anonymised vaccination data with TraceTogether
When TraceTogether tokens or smartphones using the TraceTogether mobile application are near one another, they exchange anonymised proximity information using Bluetooth. This information is stored securely on the phone, and only shared with the Ministry of Health if a user tests positive for Covid-19.
The ability of Covid-19 vaccines to inhibit transmission through "sterilising immunity" remains a major unknown for the leading, if not all, vaccine candidates.
It is also expected to vary from vaccine to vaccine.
With a few vaccines expected to be eventually available to the population here, along with the use of digital contact-tracing systems comprising TraceTogether and SafeEntry, Singapore is in a prime position to contribute to a much-needed scientific understanding of the amount of protection each of the major vaccines can confer to society at large — without compromising on personal data protection.
The key to this understanding lies in the integration of TraceTogether with anonymised vaccination and testing data.
Anonymisation is crucial to maintaining the ethos of safeguarding privacy that TraceTogether is designed to uphold.
By appending one's anonymised Covid-19 vaccination record to TraceTogether, an opportunity presents itself to directly measure each vaccine's ability to inhibit transmission through proximity data.
This, coupled with a rigorous schedule of surveillance testing for the entire population whose results may also be anonymously appended to TraceTogether, will provide a real-time picture of the national network graph of transmission necessary to achieve the desired level of disease control. If not, then in the interest of preserving privacy, at least its relevant sub-graphs.
