One In Five People In Malaysia Uses MySejahtera

The scientific threshold for an effective e-tracing ecosystem is 60% of the population using it, according to an Oxford University study.

KUALA LUMPUR, July 24 — The government’s MySejahtera contact tracing app has recorded 6,366,678 users as of July 15, Communications and Multimedia Minister Saifuddin Abdullah said.

This amounts to about 20 per cent of Malaysia’s estimated 32.7 million population this year.

Saifuddin was answering Ipoh Timur MP Wong Kah Woh (DAP) in Parliament, who had asked the ministry to disclose the total costs involved in the development of Gerak Malaysia and MySejahtera applications and total downloads so far.

“The MySejahtera application was developed to assist the government in monitoring the Covid-19 transmission and break epidemiologic chain of the infection and subsequently address the Covid-19 pandemic through self-assessment of health,” said Saifuddin in a written Parliament answer dated July 21.

“The Gerak Malaysia application was developed to assist the police in managing the movement during the Conditional Movement Control Order (CMCO). To date, as many as 2.2 million people have downloaded and the total costs involved were incurred entirely by the industry,” he added.

According to the minister, the government, through several ministries and agencies, developed Gerak Malaysia, MySejahtera, and MyTrace applications to monitor Covid-19 transmission in the country.

The government created the mobile applications to help frontline workers trace Covid-19 infections among Malaysians.

Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said in a statement yesterday that MySejahtera recorded a drop in the number of check-ins at various premises like restaurants and markets for the past three weeks, despite an increase in the number of registered users with the contact tracing app. MySejahtera also enables users to monitor their own health.

Apart from the contact tracing apps that have been developed by the federal government, states like Selangor, Penang, Sarawak, and Sabah have created their own Covid-19 contact tracing apps too.

Recently, CodeBlue reported that Selangor’s SELangkah application has hit the effectiveness scientific threshold of 60 per cent, as 95 per cent of the state’s population have used the contact tracing app, according to SELangkah creator Dr Helmi Zakariah, who cited an Oxford University study that stated an e-tracing ecosystem is considered effective when 60 per cent of the population uses it.

Dr Helmi highlighted that digital tracing methods become essential as asymptomatic patients, or those who do not display symptoms, tend to spread the virus at a much faster rate, especially in areas with a denser population.

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