Users: Communication woes plague COVID app
More than 1.15 million people have enabled the COVID Alert CT phone app. Only a tiny fraction of them have actually used it, and it’s unknown how many notifications have been sent, state records show.
Of that number, updated as of Feb. 7, only 10,545 COVID patients were sucessfully contacted by a contact tracer and given the codes necessary for the app to work.
Of that, 2,350 of those codes were used. Those 2,350 patients are the only people in Connecticut whose infection might result in an alert through the app.
There have been 185,614 COVID cases between Nov.
8, when the app first debuted, and Feb. 7.
Many residents say they never received a notification, even though close friends and family were diagnosed with COVID-19.
“I was contact-traced pretty quickly after I tested positive,” said Preston Kingswood of Mansfield. He was given a code at that time in order to input his information into the application, as is supposed to happen.
But, “then when I went to input it into the app it did not work,” he said. “No one knew I had COVID and I had to personally contact all my acquaintances.”
When a patient is confirmed to have COVID-19, a contact tracer attempts to reach out. The state also has its own, separate protocol, through which that contact tracer then attempts to reach anyone who might have come in contact with that patient.
The contact tracer also offers that patient a code for the app. The patient can then input their information so the app, which was developed by Apple, Google and Microsoft, can alert anyone who has also enabled the app and who might have been in proximity to the original patient.
What the state could not say is how many people have been notified by the app that they were in proximity to someone with COVID-19.
Lora Rae Anderson, a spokeswoman for Gov. Ned Lamont’s office, said that means lives may have been saved.
“If, worst case scenario, those (2,350) codes have only sent a notification to one other person, that's still over 2,000 people who have had the opportunity to understand they may have been infected, and can take steps to stay home to help ensure others don't get infected,” she said. “So, a number that may seem small has an exponential effect on thousands and thousands of people, ultimately saving lives.”
But Kingswood argued that because the app did not work for him as it was designed to work, and therefore he took it upon himself to contact others, precious time was lost.
“Because of this, we believe that my positive case probably yielded more positive cases due to lag time in notification,” he said. “Had the app worked as intended, more cases could have been prevented.”
The app which was provided to the state and to residents at no cost, does not use location services like GPS. If a patient has input the specific code, and then comes within 6 feet for 15 minutes or more of another phone with the app enabled, a Bluetooth connection will alert the user of a possible exposure.
Barbara Zocco believes she caught COVID-19 from her neighbor. The two families had been close, and Zocco, of Newington, said she had spent 45 minutes in a car with her COVIDpositive neighbor on Dec 12, days before she tested positive.
She said both had their cellphones on and the app enabled.
“I never got an alert on my iPhone,” she said.
Her husband, Frank Zocco, who later also tested positive, was also never alerted.
“I just assumed I would get an alert or something over the phone,” he said. “It was enabled. It required a pin, and no one knew how to get a pin.”
That question of how to obtain a code was raised by several Connecticut residents. Christin Klouda, a nurse at John B. Sliney Elementary School in Branford, said she knows of no one who has been alerted.
“I am not aware of direct exposure where I should have been contacted, however, I do know many who had signed up and were never notified and others who were positive and were never asked if they had signed up nor were they given a code,” she said.
For the app to work as designed, a patient needs to be successfully reached by a contact tracer, given a code, enable the app, input the code and then be in proximity to another person with the app enabled.
Those hurdles aside, Anderson said the app is “pretty incredible,” and not the only weapon in the state’s arsenal being used to fight the pandemic.
“While we don't know the individual circumstances of every single individual who downloaded the app, we know they all had to have been in contact with at least one person — but likely more people — to have been infected with COVID-19,” she said. “While the program isn't fail-safe, it's one more step people can take to protect their neighbors and stay informed.”
And the app has demonstrably worked. Susan Graham said she did receive an alert.
“When my partner reported, same residence, I did get an alert,” she said. “The alert arrived within two hours of his receiving test results and reporting his diagnosis to the app using the share button. The test was less than 24 hours before the alert, so the alert results were fast.”
In fact, Graham believes at least 10 people may have been notified after her partner was diagnosed.
“I do not know if anyone else was alerted, but if you dig deep in the app it did show 10 other anonymous codes of other phones connected to my alert, so I assumed that number of people did get it,” she said.