COVID was opportunity to experiment with nationwide digital surveillance: World Governments Summit

Digital surveillance tools introduced during lockdowns & the great reset are being turned towards climate agendas: perspective

Public health ministers tell the World Governments Summit that COVID-19 was an opportunity that allowed their countries to experiment with nationwide digital surveillance tools like contact tracing and vaccine passports.

Last week, the World Governments Summit in Dubai, UAE held panel called “Global Healthcare: From Vision to Reality,” with the health ministers from Brunei, Madagascar, Seychelles, and the Maldives, along with the president of the Mohammed Bin Rashid University of Medicine and Health Sciences in the UAE.

Brunei’s Minister of Health Dr. Haji Mohammad Isham bin Haji Jaafar, said that his country’s digital health transformation began 11 years ago, but it was difficult to justify the continued spending until COVID-19 came around, which they used as an opportunity to introduce a contact tracing and vaccination QR code to “control the movement of the people.”

Madagascar’s Minister of Public Health Zely Randriamanantany said that COVID was an “occasion to experiment with digital surveillance” leading to “nationwide surveillance” and that pandemic was the catalyst to digitalize the country’s healthcare infrastructure.

And Seychelles Minister of Health Peggy Vidot said that “the pandemic was a dress rehearsal for the climate crisis we currently face.”

Here’s what they had to say in more detail, starting with Dr. Jaafar from the absolute monarchy-ruled government of Brunei Darussalam.

“It’s very difficult to convince our colleague from the Ministry of Finance to say whatever money we put in this [digital health] investment, and Alhamdulillah [praise be to Allah], good or not, COVID-19 happens […] We take this opportunity to install this program called ‘BruHealth’ where we control the movement of the people using the QR code, so we can do contact tracing and vaccination program“
Brunei Minister of Health Dr. Haji Mohammad Isham bin Haji Jaafar, World Governments Summit, 2025

Alhamdulillah [praise be to Allah] good or not COVID happens. We take this opportunity to install QR code for contact tracing, vaccination. How do we move forward with the advantage that almost everyone uses this app to move around? Brunei Health Minister #WGS25 #WorldGovSummit pic.twitter.com/1VPky9aaDc
— Tim Hinchliffe (@TimHinchliffe) February 18, 2025

“How de we move forward with the advantage that we have where people, almost everyone, uses this app to move around? We take this opportunity to make this contract tracing become almost like your personal assistant to health”
Brunei Minister of Health Dr. Haji Mohammad Isham bin Haji Jaafar, World Governments Summit, 2025

“COVID-19 has leapfrogged many countries towards digitalization of their healthcare, and Brunei is blessed in such a way that for more than 11 years now we have digitalized our health information system,” said Brunei’s health minister.

“To move further it’s very difficult to convince our colleague from the Ministry of Finance to say whatever money we put in this investment, and Alhamdulillah [praise be to Allah], good or not, COVID-19 happens!

“With Brunei’s small population we are limited with human capacity, so how do we control the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure the movement of people is still going on, but yet we are able to control the pandemic.

“So, we envisage by having this digital health information on the phone — almost everyone in Brunei has a phone, whether you are a 60-year-old grandmother or five-year-old — so, we take this opportunity to install this program called ‘BruHealth’ where we control the movement of the people using the QR code, so we can do contact tracing and vaccination program as well,” Dr. Jaafar added.

With the digital contacting tracing and vaccine passport already in place, Brunei’s minister of health turned his eyes towards expanding the digital health infrastructure.

“Now, how de we move forward with the advantage that we have where people, almost everyone, uses this app to move around?” he asked.

“So, we take this opportunity to make this contract tracing become almost like your personal assistant to health.”

“Everything is on the phone now — from your medical history, your appointments — and now we’re going for public health for screening to make sure it’s easily accessed,” Dr. Jaafar added.

During the same panel, Madagascar’s Minister of Public Health Zely Randriamanantany praised his country’s president, Andry Rajoelina, for being a leader in digitalization in Africa while saying COVID-19 was an opportunity to experiment with digital surveillance.

“It [COVID-19] was an occasion for us to experiment a digital surveillance. We developed an application […] during the pandemic, and in fact it was the first time we were tracking the spread of the virus”
Madagascar’s Minister of Public Health Zely Randriamanantany, World Governments Summit, 2025

COVID "was an occasion for us to experiment digital surveillance.. We developed an app for tracking the spread of the virus.. in order to stop it.. As it was a success, we are now implementing nationwide surveillance" Madagascar Minister of Public Health, #WGS25 #WorldGovSummit pic.twitter.com/AwWKCAjqG8
— Tim Hinchliffe (@TimHinchliffe) February 18, 2025

“We are now starting also the digitalization of the whole [healthcare] structure […] and the pandemic was an occasion for us to start it”
Madagascar’s Minister of Public Health Zely Randriamanantany, World Governments Summit, 2025

“In fact it was an occasion for us to experiment a digital surveillance. We developed an application […] during the pandemic, and in fact it was the first time we were tracking the spread of the virus in the two main towns of Madagascar — Antananarivo and Toamasina — in order to stop the spread of the virus, and we succeeded in it,” said Randriamanantany.

“As it was the first experience, it was a success, and in fact we are now implementing a nationwide surveillance.

“We have more than 3,000 healthcare facilities across the island, and we bought tablets for all of these healthcare facilities, and now they’re starting nationwide surveillance in Madagascar.

“We are now starting also the digitalization of the whole structure, and electronic medical data is not used mainly in Madagascar, but we have to start somewhere, and the pandemic was an occasion for us to start it,” he added.

Moving into the realm of the great reset, the minister of health for Seychelles Peggy Vidot said that the COVID-19 pandemic was a dress rehearsal for climate change, and that so-called international green funds should be funneled towards healthcare.

“We need a radical reset […] The pandemic for us was a dress rehearsal for the climate crisis we face right now”
Seychelles Minister of Health Peggy Vidot, World Governments Summit, 2025

"WE NEED A RADICAL RESET. The PANDEMIC for us WAS A DRESS REHEARSAL FOR THE CLIMATE CRISIS WE FACE RIGHT NOW" Seychelles Health Minister Peggy Vidot, World Governments Summit #WGS25 #WorldGovSummit https://t.co/E8AmS1ozmi pic.twitter.com/HaMupVQM98
— Tim Hinchliffe (@TimHinchliffe) February 18, 2025

“We need to leverage the international climate funds, such as green climate funds, and channel some of this funding into health projects, especially to address the health-related climate health challenges”
Seychelles Minister of Health Peggy Vidot, World Governments Summit, 2025

“We really need to look at adapting healthcare systems to mitigate and respond to all the emerging climate-related health challenges,” said Vidot.

“As we look at what needs to be done, we need to learn from lessons of maybe COVID-19, which taught us that resilience is not optional and that climate change amplifies this truth.”

The Seychelles health minister also called for the creation of “a global climate health information fund” for nation states where, in her words, “climate change is really having a lot of health challenges.”

Vidot’s words echo those of World Economic Forum (WEF) founder Klaus Schwab and his writing partner Thierry Malleret in their book “COVID-19: The Great Reset.”

For example, the minister of health for Seychelles declared, “We need a radical reset […] The pandemic for us was a dress rehearsal for the climate crisis we face right now.”

Now compare what the minister said with these three excerpts from “COVID-19: The Great Reset:”

“At first glance, the pandemic and the environment might seem to be only distantly related cousins; but they are much closer and more intertwined than we think.”?

“Some leaders and decision-makers who were already at the forefront of the fight against climate change may want to take advantage of the shock inflicted by the pandemic to implement long-lasting and wider environmental changes. They will, in effect, make ‘good use’ of the pandemic by not letting the crisis go to waste.”

“If, in the post-pandemic era, we decide to resume our lives just as before (by driving the same cars, by flying to the same destinations, by eating the same things, by heating our house the same way, and so on), the COVID-19 crisis will have gone to waste as far as climate policies are concerned.”

When Schwab and Britain’s King Charles declared that it was time for a great reset three months into the COVID-19 pandemic, they called it a “narrow window” and a “shrinking, golden opportunity” to seize the moment when people were most afraid and vulnerable to thrust upon them their long-planned agenda of a golden age out of the destruction of the old — to build back better — as they said.

And although the coronavirus was the catalyst to set the great reset agenda in motion, the vehicle by which they would achieve their social and economic order out of chaos was climate change.

The digital surveillance measures of contact tracing and vaccine passports to control mobility and limit citizen participation in many aspects of society during COVID are now turned towards the fusion of climate change and public health agendas.

At the same World Governments Summit last week, Oracle founder Larry Ellison called for the creation of a “single, unified data platform” for every country’s health data in order to feed AI systems and make governments more efficient.

Image Source: Screenshot from the World Governments Summit 2025 panel on “Global Healthcare: From Vision to Reality“

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