Contact-tracing apps can help beat COVID-19

Imagine if scientists invented a special pair of glasses strong enough to reveal where the virus that causes COVID-19 lurks. Such a discovery could warn people about possible danger zones, help stop the spread of the illness and assist Canada in getting past the gruelling lockdown of recent months.

Of course, no such pair of glasses is to be found. But there is, in fact, existing technology that could automatically notify people if they’ve been near someone with COVID-19 and alert public health officials to places where they should intervene.

It’s called a contact-tracing app. It could be downloaded to every cellphone in Canada. France rolled out its own version last Tuesday and within hours 600,000 people were using it. Italy, Switzerland and Latvia have similar apps up and running.

But while Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said last month that Ottawa intends to “recommend strongly to Canadians a particular app that will help us manage the spread of COVID-19,” that potentially gamechanging technology is nowhere in sight for most of the country. That should change, and as soon as possible.

Contact-tracing apps have been developed to inform people if they have come into close contact with someone who later tests positive for COVID-19. That would allow people who have been exposed to selfisolate quickly — certainly more quickly than is now the case. And by better identifying those who should be in quarantine, it would make it easier to relax physical-distancing measures in places where such measures are not needed. We could reopen this country more quickly. And we could do it safely.

To be sure, public health officials already recognize the value of tracking people who might have come into contact with someone with COVID-19. But the way they’re doing it now, by telephone, is laborious, slow and limited in scope.

It’s not getting us where we want to be. While Toronto public health officials say they can contact 80 per cent of the people who test positive within 24 hours, reaching all their contacts is proving an almost impossible task.

So why hasn’t Ottawa already offered Canadians an app? Well, Canada being Canada, the federal and provincial governments need to co-ordinate their response. Part of the challenge facing them will be in determining whether there will be one app for the entire nation or as many as one for every province and territory.

Alberta has, with unfortunately poor results, had its own contact-tracing app for a month. Now, it’s trying to offer an improved version of it. But the country’s COVID-19 hot spots are in Ontario and Quebec. How long must they wait?

Another obstacle is the reasonable concern over the potential abuse of the privacy of those who download the app to their cellphones. These concerns can be managed. Yet although Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien is ready to offer his helpful advice, he has not been consulted by the federal government. What an egregious oversight.

If our federal and provincial leaders want to introduce contact-tracing apps to the public — and they should — they need to start talking to Canadians about it. This is the time for a nationwide publicinformation campaign. This is the time to answer and allay the concerns of those who fear we might be entering an unprecedented era of government surveillance.

If there is to be a nationwide rollout of contacttracing apps, the strategy will work only if the vast majority of the population voluntarily buys into it. But if Canadians aren’t properly asked, don’t be surprised if most say no deal.