KUALA LUMPUR: A daily list of premises identified as potential Covid-19 hotspots will be published beginning May 7, 2021, to facilitate self-regulation among business owners and the public.
The Hotspots Identification for Dynamic Engagement (HIDE) will enable business owners and members of the public to facilitate self-regulation, said Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin.
He said making it public would identify premises that could become potential cluster locations or Covid-19 hotspots.
"The HIDE system is a pre-emptive targeted intervention tool which leverages on the MySejahtera mobile application check-in data and health databases to identify premises that could become potential cluster locations.
"HIDE will identify a daily list of locations flagged as potential hotspots within seven days. This will help premises owners and the public to make an informed decision as well as doing self-monitoring by not going to premises that are listed as high-risks.
"Proper actions must be taken by premises owners by doing swab tests for employees, tighten movements into the premise and make QR code scanning compulsory," he said in a press conference in Putrajaya today.
According to Khairy, who is the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme coordinating minister, the pre-emptive actions on HIDE include inspecting MySejahtera risk status, holding mass Covid-19 tests, tightening crowd control measures, getting premise visitors to get tested if they are symptomatic as well as assisting with work-from-home arrangements.
HIDE is a system that uses big data and artificial intelligence through contact detections by making predictions of the likelihood of the occurrence of a new Covid-19 cluster.
Khairy said the analysis on HIDE is done based on several variables which include detecting positive cases that were present at certain locations as well as the exposure time at the hotspots or potential hotspots.
On how HIDE is different from other systems used in the country, Khairy said the system is predictive, where it calculates the potential of each area becoming a hotspot before things get out of control.
"HIDE is predictive, not reactive. In the past, contact tracing is done when a patient is tested positive for Covid-19 but with HIDE, it does both forward and backward contact tracing.
"HIDE system will be able to predict whether or not that particular hotspot that has been identified will be responsible for more transmissions in the future.
"Previously, we only intervened when we had a large number of people testing positive in certain premises.
"What HIDE does is that it tries to predict certain premises that have multiple transmissions and take action as soon as they are flagged to become potential hotspots."