Cuomo: New app tracks COVID
Users will be informed by phone if they were near infected person
The state has launched a mobile contact tracing app that will notify New Yorkers if they ’ve potentially been exposed to a COVID -19-positive person, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced on Thursday.
The app is called COVID
Alert NY.
“What this app will do is it will tell you if you were within six feet of a person who tested positive, and if you were within six feet (of someone) who tested positive for 10 minutes,” Cuomo said in a briefing on Thursday morning.
Here’s how it works: If a person using the app spends 10 minutes within six feet of you, your phones will swap random codes to remember the contact. According to the Cuomo administration, the codes don’t record anything about the individual or their location. If one of the app users tests positive for the virus within the next few days, the app will send the other person an alert.
The app also features a “health log ” option that lets someone track their health by storing a log of any symptoms. The app asks users whether they are experiencing symptoms such as fatigue, a headache, fever or sore throat, and also for information including their coun
ty of residence, age range and ethnicity.
The logs, which the Cuomo administration says are kept anonymous, help researchers understand how the virus is affecting New York. The app also provides the latest information about the percentage of the population in both New York and individual counties that have tested positive.
The app was designed with the help of Larry Schwartz, a former top aide to Cuomo who is now extensively assisting the governor in fighting the pandemic in a volunteer capacity. Schwartz told reporters that the initiative was an “enhancement to traditional contact tracing ” meant to minimize community spread of COVID.
The app’s code is open source, Schwartz said, so anyone can look at how the program actually
works. It does not collect data or track people, he said.
“The key to this is to get people to volunteer to download the app,” Schwartz said.
Apple, Google and the Linux Foundation were both helpful in developing the app. But Cuomo said the companies do not have access to user’s personal information and that the app has been reviewed by a “host of experts” to ensure there were not privacy concerns. Besides Schwartz, Cuomo also in particular credited former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose charity has funded extensive contract tracing efforts. Schwartz said the app’s creation cost about $700,000 and was paid for using federal funds and money from Bloomberg Philanthropies.
The app is available in the top six languages spoken in New York.
“Check out the app, COVID alert, I’m going to download it right now,” Cuomo said.