Recovery, Renewal, Resilience

A number of track and trace mechanisms to support treatment have been credited with supporting the response in Korea[1]. These include: Self-diagnosis Apps for in-bound travellers; the self-quarantine Safety APP; contact tracing and epidemiological investigations.

Self-diagnosis Apps for in-bound travellers

This self-diagnosis mobile application has been available to in-bound travellers at airports and harbours. The apps:

• Have been developed by the government to monitor symptoms of inbound travellers and provide them with prompt medical advice.
• Are downloaded onto a mobile device and:
  • Is required at entry by all inbound travellers since 1st April 2020.
  • Is available through the URL and QR codes available around the airport or harbour immigration gates and on special arrival cards.
• Require the in-bound traveller to:
  • Install the app and use it to submit passport information, nationality, name, address and other necessary information for quarantine.
  • Connect directly to a call centre and social media channels and provides medical answers against suspected symptoms to enable early treatment.
  • Report their health condition (body temperature, cough, sore throat, or difficulty breathing) through the application once a day during their 14 days of quarantine.
  • Seek medical advice if they are showing symptoms. This can be done through call centres operated by the Korea Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC), or at COVID-19 screening centres.
• Collect data entered by the user during the self-diagnosis which:
  • Is checked against immigration data before being sent to the public health clinics under jurisdiction of local governments.
  • Is transferred to local governments so that the corresponding public health clinics can provide medical advice, testing and instructions on how to receive care. This is done for travellers reporting symptoms for more than 2 days.

Self-quarantine Safety APP

This is a voluntary application for residents of Korea. The app:

• Has three functions to:
  • Conduct a self-diagnosis for the users to conduct and submit the results with the assigned government officers
  • Provide necessary information including self-quarantine guidelines and the contact info of the assigned government case officers.
  • Ensure that self-quarantine orders are kept by setting off a GPS-based location tracking alarm whenever a user ventures out from the designated quarantine area - to prevent possible violation of orders. A case officer is also notified when quarantine is disobeyed; the case officer takes appropriate measures to have the subject return to the quarantine area.
• Has two types of application available:
  • One for the users under self-quarantine – they use the application twice a day to monitor themselves for four symptoms: fever, cough, sore throat, and respiratory difficulties.
  • One for the assigned government case officers – once submitted, the self-diagnostic data will automatically be shared with an assigned case officer, who will be notified if the user does not submit the self-diagnostic data or becomes symptomatic.
• Has been effective in monitoring those under self-quarantine and making sure that they stay in designated locations. The alarm function of the application has demonstrated to encourage the quarantined to follow regulations.

Contact tracing and epidemiological investigations

The COVID-19 Data Platform supports investigators as they trace infected people. The app:

• Is designed to:
  • Support epidemiological surveyors to quickly identify the transmission routes and places that the infected person has visited
  • Use real-time analysis of data through location tracking, card transactions, and CCTV recordings for accurate tracing of routes and places
• Takes users through a process of using the app as:
  • Citizens voluntarily record their whereabouts on their smartphones using Google Timeline
  • Using a ‘My Timeline’ function on Google Map application, the user whereabouts and routes are recorded automatically.
  • Data on Google Timeline can be captured as screenshots and shared with epidemiological investigators, who will use the data to trace contacts and patient routes.
• Supports health officials in:
  • Confirming the interview results of patient transmission routes with data on the system.
  • Allowing big data analysis from real-time data feeds on COVID-19 patients, including their whereabouts and the time spent on each location.
  • Using these multiple data points, so that the system can detect incidents of cluster infection and show the source of transmission.
  • Enabling prompt data-driven COVID-19 epidemiological investigations.

Further details on the apps are available[2],[3].

References:

[1] Flattening the curve on COVID-19: How Korea responded to a pandemic using ICT http://www.undp.org/content/seoul_policy_center/en/home/presscenter/articles/2019/flattening-the-curve-on-covid-19.html

[2]http://ncov.mohw.go.kr/upload/ncov/file/202004/1587521842434_20200422111722.pdf

[3]http://ncov.mohw.go.kr/upload/viewer/skin/doc.html?fn=1587107400738_20200417161001.pdf&rs=/upload/viewer/result/202005/