The govt is working on software that could “predict and locate” COVID-19 cases

This has to be the most Minority Report solution I’ve seen in the face of the global pandemic that is the COVID-19 virus. Reportedly, the Malaysian Health Director-General Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said today that the government is working on developing a software that could predict and locate the COVID-19 cases among Malaysians.

“The Health Ministry together with the Ministry of Communications and Multimedia and the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation is working hard to create a software that would be able to predict and to even locate some of our cases in certain areas,” he said in a press conference yesterday evening.

Dr Noor Hisham said that the software would allow the authorities to take fast action against the spread of infection at the hotspots area.

“For example, we know Simpang Renggang in Johor has spikes of cases and also in Sungai Lui. With this software, we can take fast action in these areas,” he said.

But, beyond that, it looks like the Health D-G didn’t elaborate any further on exactly how software like this would work. From the way he described it, it sounds like it could be some kind of programme that could run simulations to try and figure out how a viral infection would spread if it hit a particular area. Or, it could come straight out of the pages of a science fiction novel—I don’t really know at this point.

I will say that I don’t know if a high-tech straight-out-of-science-fiction technology is usually developed in such a short amount of time.

I mean, we’ve seen one of the most advanced technological companies in the world, Google—that specialises in machine learning—has not come up with anything when they suddenly found out through Donald Trump that they were “going to develop a website…to determine if a test is warranted and to facilitate testing at a nearby convenient location”.

You could, however, ask Siri whether she thinks you have the Coronavirus, but again, that’s not super reliable.

This just piques my curiosity surrounding this cool-sounding new software that our government is working on. How does it work? How will it predict and locate COVID-19 cases? Are we spending a lot of our resources on developing this software, considering the state of our economy?

In any case, I think the answers will be revealed of or when we see this software in action.

There are a total of 3,116 cases in Malaysia, with 208 new cases today. 50 people have died from this in Malaysia, while a total of 767 have recovered—122 today.

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