Thread by @fs0c131y

Singapore's contact tracing app is now open-source under the name OpenTrace github.com/opentrace-comm…

The manifesto and the white paper are available on their website bluetrace.io

Since the beginning, Singapore did an awesome job. They were the first to create and deploy an app, they designated it with privacy in mind, the app was optional, the code is now open source. This is how things should be done and this professionnal job should be applauded.

But

and this is a big but

it didn't work

Despite this excellent job, Singapor announced 1 week ago a national lockdown. They recognized that they were unable to trace the contanimation of half of the cases

straitstimes.com/singapore/heal…

"Furthermore, despite our good contact tracing, for nearly half of these cases, we do not know where or from whom the person caught the virus," - Singapore PM

Singapore is an island city-state with a population of less than 6 millions. They did everything they need, they did it well and it failed.

And you think you can do better for your old country of 70 millions people which is not a f*cking island? Come on!

Can we learn from the only example we have and conclude that a contact tracing app is not a magical solution? It's not solving a pandemic, even on an island with a small population.

Alone and without the adoption of the population, a contact tracing app is useless

It was a sexy idea on the paper but it's not working in the field. This is more complex than just install an app and we are done

And btw, the timing here is interesting:
March 25: Singapore announced the release of their contact tracing app code
April 2: National lockdown declared
April 9: Release of the source code

They waited more than 2 weeks for the release. They were able to do it faster #justSaying