Digital Contact Tracing: for the foreseeable future a necessary tool for fighting COVID-19
Digital Contact Tracing (dCT) is considered for the foreseeable future still a necessary tool for monitoring and mitigation of the COVID-19 pandemic, as integral part of an overall Test-Trace-Isolate policy.
The last couple of days information on vaccines nearing availability has gotten major attention in the media. In addition, there is information on COVID-19 test kits becoming simpler, cheaper and/or giving results faster.
However, the view on the current situation is as follows:
- In spite of the expected near future availability of effective and reliable vaccines, the role of Test-Trace-Isolate, including digital Contact Tracing, is far from over
- It is estimated that Test-Trace-Isolate and digital Contact Tracing will be important and necessary tools for another 1.5 years from now: on the basis of what is known about the vaccines, it is foreseen that a combination of massive vaccination, testing and manual and digital Contact Tracing will be needed to bring the COVID-19 pandemic under control.
DATSA Belgium 