Covid app hits all-time high in spite of a million deletions

THE Covid tracker app has been deleted almost a million times in Ireland since its introduction, new figures reveal.

There have been 969,000 deletions since it was introduced here – although the number of active users reached an all-time high of 1,316,013 last week.

A new radio campaign is under way to promote the system, which recognises and logs other phones with the app in close proximity and can warn close contacts if a person develops Covid.

New figures from the HSE, released to the Irish Independent, show the app has been downloaded approximately 2.2 million times in total, with 1.3 million active users over recent months.

The difference of 900,000 comes against a background whereby the app itself is highly successful. The Irish version is now being used by 10 public health authorities across Europe, North America and New Zealand. It has also been adapted and used in Scotland, Jersey, Gibraltar, Pennsylvania, Delaware and New York.

The HSE did not comment on why more than 900,000 original downloads were no longer in operation, although there was a total of 179,477 deletions in a single week last year that coincided with publicity given to claims the app used a lot of space on devices. Deletions are still running at around 15,000 a week, although they have been outpaced by new downloads since the start of this year as anxiety increased over the virus. Former users may also have taken it up again.

A HSE statement said: “Covid Tracker has received over 2.5 million app registrations and we estimate that we have 1.3 million active users.

“The design of the app prioritised privacy for Covid Tracker users, as a result there is no accurate way to measure the number of users.”

But the statistics also significantly show that weekly check-ins have halved in eight months. The number of user interactions with the app reached a height of 2.19 million last spring, but has been falling steadily in every week since.

There was a new low of 1.15 million check-ins last week.