• The plan to mandate its use at high-risk events is aimed at encouraging TraceTogether adoption
• It allows contact tracing teams to cut the contact tracing process from four days to less than two days on average
• Besides CCs, TraceTogether tokens may now be collected at pop-up booths at certain malls, marketplaces on weekends

SINGAPORE — The use of TraceTogether mobile application or token will be made compulsory for people attending large gatherings and high-risk activities amid the Covid-19 pandemic, said Senior Minister of State for Health Janil Puthucheary on Sunday (Oct 4).

Speaking to reporters when visiting a pop-up TraceTogether token collection point at Bedok Mall, he said it will be one of the ways the Government encourages the adoption of TraceTogether, which was designed to support contact tracing efforts.

“What we will require in order to open up those higher-risk activities is a higher degree of TraceTogether and SafeEntry usage for those activities,” said Dr Puthucheary, who is also the minister-in-charge of Government Technology Agency (GovTech).

“So there will be some activities where in order for you to get in there, you must be either carrying the token or (using) the app, and use SafeEntry to get in.”

Currently, only the use of SafeEntry is compulsory. The use of TraceTogether is optional.

Addressing a frequently asked question of why TraceTogether is needed when the public is already using SafeEntry, Dr Puthucheary pointed out their different applications.

He said: “For the healthcare professionals who do contact tracing, there are two questions that they ask. The first is where and how did you get your infection, and SafeEntry is better at helping us answer this question.

“The second question they ask is who could you have passed this infection to, and TraceTogether is better at answering that question. So we need both.”

Minister-in-charge of the Smart Nation initiative Vivian Balakrishnan had previously said on Sept 14, the first day of a nationwide distribution of TraceTogether tokens, that the Government’s target is to get TraceTogether participation up to about 70 per cent.

Then, the app had achieved about 2.4 million downloads, which accounts for around 40 per cent of the Singapore population, and the tokens were distributed to jolt the participation rate, especially among senior citizens.

Giving an update on Sunday, Dr Puthucheary said more than 100,000 tokens had been distributed to date, and the authorities had added more collection points at locations with a high footfall since Friday, so as to make it more convenient for the public to collect their tokens.

These collection points were situated in shopping malls, including Chinatown Point, Causeway Point, City Square Mall and Raffles City, this weekend.

On subsequent weekends, the booths will pop up at the following locations:

• Oct 10: IMM (11am to 3pm), Lot One (11am to 3pm), Bugis Junction (5pm to 9pm)

• Oct 11: CompassOne (11am to 3pm), Junction 8 (11am to 3pm)

• Oct 16: Marina Square (11am to 3pm)

• Oct 17: JCube (11am to 3pm), Seletar Mall (11am to 3pm), Westgate (5pm to 9pm)

• Oct 18: Northpoint City (5pm to 9pm)

• Oct 24: Wheelock (11am to 3pm), SingPost Centre (11am to 3pm)

• Oct 25; Clementi Mall (11am to 3pm)

• Oct 31: VivoCity (11am to 3pm)

• Nov 7: Paya Lebar Quarter Mall (5pm to 9pm)

• Nov 8: Tampines Mall (5pm to 9pm)

There will be about 100 locations in total, and members of the public can refer to the TokenGoWhere website for the latest locations of the booths.

Collection points were previously limited to 20 community centres and clubs (CCs) in the Jalan Besar and Tanjong Pagar regions, before they were expanded to 18 other CCs in the Ang Mo Kio, Bishan, Toa Payoh and Sengkang regions on Thursday.

In a fact sheet released on Sunday, the Smart Nation and Digital Government Office reiterated that the ability to do contact tracing quickly and at scale becomes “more critical” as Singapore looks to reopen its economy further by allowing more businesses and social activities to resume.

Particularly, it helps reduce the risk of new transmission chains forming, it added, pointing out that it allows contact tracing teams to reduce the time taken to identify and quarantine close contacts of Covid-19 patients from four days to less than two days on average.