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The first coronavirus tracker app in the United States has rolled out in Virginia.
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam announced this week the new app, COVIDWISE, is the first statewide app using technology from both Google and Apple to aid in coronavirus exposure contact tracing, NPR reported.
The coronavirus tracker app, which is free and available to download now on the Google Play Store and App Store, uses Bluetooth technology to notify users if they may have been exposed to someone with COVID-19.
“We know people are contagious before they show symptoms,” Northam said at a Wednesday news conference. “This can really help us catch new cases early before they spread as far.”
The coronavirus tracker app allows people to anonymously report positive COVID-19 test results and alert COVIDWISE users who’ve been near them.
Concerns have been raised about using technology such as tracking apps as a means of COVID-19 contact tracing.
In some places, such as South Korea, apps have been used to enforce mandatory quarantines for those identified as being infected, NPR reported.
But Virginia officials stress that the COVIDWISE coronavirus tracker app is meant for coronavirus exposure notification only and is not meant to be a means of direct contact tracing, according to NPR.
Jeff Stover with the Virginia Department of Health said at a separate briefing Wednesday that such privacy concerns were the reason officials chose a Bluetooth-based app rather than the location-based contact tracing technology used elsewhere, according to NPR.
“We can’t do our job well if we can’t ensure that the people that we’re working with trust us to ensure the privacy and confidentiality of our data,” Stover said. “We were very aware of that as we went into the development of this app.”
Users who download COVIDWISE must opt in to the Exposure Notifications System, according to Engadget. The coronavirus tracker app will then generate random, anonymous beacons for the user’s device.
Nearby phones with the COVIDWISE app will receive and store those beacons and emit beacons of their own, Engadget reported.
“No location data or personal information is ever collected, stored or transmitted to VDH as part of the app,” Virginia Department of Health spokeswoman Julie Grimes told Virginia Public Media, adding that users can delete the app or turn off exposure notifications any time they wish.
COVIDWISE users testing positive for COVID-19 will be given a personal identification number by a state health department official, according to Engadget. That number can then be used to report the positive result on the coronavirus tracker app.
The app will download a list of all anonymous beacons associated with positive COVID-19 test results each day and cross-check them against the lists from the last two weeks, Engadget reported. If a match is found, the user receives a notification and instructions on keeping themselves and those near them safe.
Stover said Virginia paid developer SpringML $229,000 in CARES Act funds for the app, according to CNBC.
The Virginia health department’s website says the app can measure contact within 6 feet of someone for at least 15 minutes, in line with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, Time magazine reported.
Apple and Google partnered about four months ago to work on software for public health agencies attempting to contain the spread of the coronavirus, Time magazine reported.
Canada and countries in Europe have also launched apps using the companies’ framework.
Alabama has also announced it will use similar technology from Google and Apple for an app to aid contact tracing on university campuses, NPR reported.
Other states have launched apps that use different technology, including satellite-based location tracking, but many of those apps send data to health officials so it can be used to trace infected individuals.
Utah, among the first to launch such an app, has since disabled the app’s location-tracking capabilities, according to Time. And Rhode Island’s app, which also uses location tracking, has not necessarily proven useful in notifying someone they’ve been exposed to coronavirus; that app is meant to jog someone’s memory of where they might have been infected by showing the user or health workers where they’ve visited in the last two weeks.
While Virginia is the first state to use the notification technology, North Dakota, Alabama and South Carolina have all signed on to use it, Tech Crunch reported. Those states have yet to launch public apps.
The apps will need to be installed by a large segment of the population — 60% of the population, according to an Oxford University study — in order to be effective at combating coronavirus exposure, CNBC reported.
In related legal news, the U.K. has designed a contact tracing app to assist the National Health Service (NHS) Test and Trace programme. The app was created in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19 by keeping data of anyone who comes into contact with an infected person. But the plans for the app trial have been impaired by delays and privacy concerns.
Would you use a coronavirus contact-tracing app? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
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