Monday 28 February 2022

Close and casual

Last week I received an sms from the government's Covid-19 health portal, saying that I have been classified as a casual contact with a person or persons who are infected with the disease. The message further told me to remain calm and perform home monitoring assessment using the MySejahtera app installed on my phone. My better half received a similar message.

I duly checked the app and saw that my C-19 risk status has now turned yellow - Casual Contact No Symptoms. The system has identified me as such, based on my check-in history to the various places that I've been to. The app also provides me with directives and advice on what to do next. This includes answering three questions relating to my current health status, every day for the next few days or so. Presumably, until the app is satisfied that I'm full okay and can be re-classified.

It is now two years that the MySejahtera app has been in use. Despite various updates in that time, I do still feel that the app has so much room for improvement. This latest information about me being a casual contact is an example. Why can't the developers include the source or location where the close contact happened? When my wife and I received the notification, we spent the whole afternoon wondering where we could have gotten the contact or perhaps we had been slack in practising the required SOPs. If this information had been provided, we could at least know where the contact occurred and be more cautious when we visit the same place in future.

But I guess user convenience and satisfaction is not on top of the list of the app developers.

Current status. Have tried setting up the MySJ Trace but had trouble loading the page