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COVID '¯Apps Roll Out Nationwide as States Try to Reopen

Michelle Quinn

   More than six months into the COVID-19 pandemic,'¯a handful of U.S.
   states are starting to roll out'¯apps that promise'¯to tell people if
   they've been exposed to someone'¯with the virus'¯-- without revealing
   personal information.'¯'¯

   Now with the White House struggling with a COVID-19 outbreak, the goal
   to figure out a way to quickly notify people has gained more urgency.

   The arrival of these apps in the U.S. comes as'¯communities are opening
   in fits and starts. The hope is that by using'¯technology'¯to notify
   people they've been exposed to the virus, the apps will enhance the
   ability of local health officials to'¯stem the spread of COVID-19.

   It's an idea being tested --in real time.'¯'¯But will the apps make a
   difference?

   "We don't know yet," said Jeffrey Kahn, director of the Johns Hopkins
   Berman Institute of Bioethics. "That's part of what's both interesting
   and frustrating about where we are. This is an unproven technology.
   It's being rolled out in the midst of a public health emergency.
   There's a lot of learning as we go as a result."

   Notifying people, anonymously

   While state apps vary, the primary approach being used in the U.S. is
   based on technology from Apple and Google:

   A person downloads an app created by their state health department.
   Using the person's mobile phone technology, the app begins collecting
   anonymized information about other phones it comes near -- which
   phones, how close and for how long. That information of the "digital
   handshake" is stored on the person's phone.

   If a person tests positive for COVID-19, health officials give that
   person a code to put into the app. An alert then goes out to others who
   have the app who have been near that person in the prior two weeks.

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