Mobile phone data for informing public health actions across the COVID-19 pandemic life cycle

It was interesting to read the Oliver et al. [1] paper about the mobile phone data for informing public health actions across the COVID-19 pandemic life cycle. Indeed, it is of great concern for the general public globally since several countries developed a mobile application to combat COVID-19 (and Thailand in among them). Thailand is a Southeast Asia country with 77 provinces, and it is well known for tourism. The majority of the tourists are from China. On January 3, 2020, the Ministry of Public health of Thailand started to screen tourists at five main airports traveling from Wuhan province before COVID-19 declared as a global pandemic (i.e., 11 March 2020 [2]).

The approach taken by Thailand stemmed from knowledge learned from the Ebola outbreak, the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) outbreak, and the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak. This knowledge came from initiatives taken by Taiwan [3], Singapore [4] and other countries. The Emergency Operation Center (EOC), Department of Disease Control (DDC), as well as Thailand public health emergency officials act as the operational command points for coordination and communication. The first case of COVID-19, that came from a Chinese tourist, was detected on 8 January 2020. Two mobile applications named Airport of Thailand (AOT) and SydeKick for #ThaiFightCOVID were introduced by Thailand government to fight against global pandemic by monitoring contact tracing in Thailand. (Figure 1)

The AOT airports app track travelers upon entering into Thailand, and it is mandatory to download and register to AOT airports application which includes personal information, registered hotel or accommodations, mobile phone number and email address. This information is directly collected by DDC for monitoring. However, the information from the application will be kept for 14 days confidentially, and then it will be deleted automatically followed by the personal data protection law. The SydeKick for ThaiFightCOVID aims to track and monitor individual traveling from high-risk countries and require self-quarantine. Both mobile applications aim to track people entering Thailand to ensure that everyone is under surveillance by related Thai public health agencies.

However, there are several challenges, such as applications developed by private industries. Their reliability and privacy is unclear because they are not governed by Thai public health agencies. Moreover, it might confuse people what to rely on as ethical considerations regarding personal information and privacy issues [5] are important concerns that need to be regulated globally.

References:

1.Oliver N, Lepri B, Sterly H, Lambiotte R, Deletaille S, De Nadai M, et al. Mobile phone data for informing public health actions across the COVID-19 pandemic life cycle. American Association for the Advancement of Science; 2020.

2. Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak [Internet]. [Cited 2020 May 13]. Available from: https://www.who.int/westernpacific/emergencies/covid-19

3. Wang CJ, Ng CY, Brook RH. Response to COVID-19 in Taiwan: Big Data Analytics, New Technology, and Proactive Testing. JAMA [Internet]. 2020 Mar 3 [cited 2020 Mar 20]; Available from: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762689

4. Wong JEL, Leo YS, Tan CC. COVID-19 in Singapore—Current Experience: Critical Global Issues That Require Attention and Action. JAMA [Internet]. 2020 Feb 20 [cited 2020 Mar 20]; Available from: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2761890

5. Organization WH. Ethical considerations to guide the use of digital proximity tracking technologies for COVID-19 contact tracing: interim guidance, 28 May 2020. 2020 [cited 2020 Jun 5]; Available from: https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/332200