COVID-19 tracking apps may get a boost from Biden’s task force
WASHINGTON — Smartphone-based COVID19 tracking apps are likely to play a role in a new national plan by Presidentelect Joe Biden to contain the coronavirus as daily case counts, hospitalizations and deaths from the disease skyrocket across the country.
Fewer than half the 50 states have launched a smartphone-based exposure notification app, and a few states have them in development.
The sparse availability of COVID-19 tracking apps may change with a push from Biden’s task force, said Scott Becker, CEO of the Association of Public Health Laboratories, an industry group that works with federal agencies on public health issues.
“I’m hopeful that more and more states are going to build and launch exposure notification apps,” Becker said.
Biden’s 13-member coronavirus task force plans to expand nationwide testing capabilities, create a cadre of health care workers to conduct contact tracing, ramp up production of personal protective equipment and implement a vaccine distribution plan.
Two weeks after the U.S. presidential election, new
COVID-19 cases, daily death counts and hospitalizations all have reached record highs. Hospitals in many states are reaching peak capacity and are reporting shortages of gloves, masks and other protective gear.
After getting off to a slow start and further delayed by privacy concerns, some states have built contact-tracing apps based on the framework created earlier this year by Apple and Google. Other states, lacking the resources to design their own app, have begun to use a simplified version of the Apple-Google framework known as EN Express — “EN” stands for exposure notification — and comes bundled with smartphone operating systems.
Both approaches use Bluetooth signals to send and receive codes that allow users with apps to figure out if they crossed paths with an infected individual. The codes, known as “keys,” carry no personal identifying information of a user and are stored on a server for 14 days.
An app user who tests positive for COVID-19 has the option of sharing that information through the app. Apps check with the server on a regular basis to see which app user has tested positive for COVID19 and which keys belonging to other users were in the vicinity of the infected individual. Using that information, apps send a warning to a user who may have been exposed to an infected person.