How Contact Tracing Apps Can Curtail Covid

If the technology was ubiquitous, meaning that everybody had it on their device, everybody had it enabled, everybody participated in opting in if and when they were infected, then the ubiquity of that technology on everybody's device would inform all those who have been in contact with people who are sick. And then the response to that would be to isolate for 14 days, to alert your health officials, and, uh, that could in effect slow things down pretty quickly. But that is obviously the, the utopian best-case scenario. The technology at this point is not widely deployed in the states. Less than 10 states have it activated at this time. So if and when it becomes widely deployed, it could be very effective in slowing down, and in some cases even stopping the virus in certain pockets.

And you raise an interesting point, because obviously at this point, for most people, it is voluntary, and then you also have to be tested to know that you've been infected, which would also help with tracing. So how effective has this contact tracing been so far, and what's really needed to make it more accurate and as effective as possible?

So it is really just rolling out as we speak, so its, uh, level of effectiveness is really the jury is still out. Tests that have been done show that as long as everybody is participating effectively is that it could really work. At this time, in order for it to be an effective tool, it really should be turned on by default. But then you have different laws in the US versus laws in European Union in regards to privacy issues and everybody's always concerned about their privacy. The good news is that the apps themselves do not share any personal or sensitive identifying information. It really is just a handshake that occurs via Bluetooth. And as long as everybody, you know, participates, it should be fine. But as you know, many people are, you know, conspiracy theorists. Many aren't even wearing masks. So getting full opt-in will probably never happen.

So then, what can be done to ease some of these misconceptions and concerns that people have? And what could health officials do to really encourage people to join in?

Yeah, that's a great question. Uh, and, uh, you know, the scientific community along with technology companies getting together and essentially gently explaining the benefits of all this would— could be effective, at least for, say, 50% of the population. But as we know, here in the U.S., uh, 50% of the population doesn't even believe that a mask, uh, is necessary, based on our current administration. So it makes things very difficult with all of the levels of disinformation out there.

So then break down how this process works for people who aren't familiar and how it's being rolled out in different countries.

Okay, so Google and Apple, uh, have worked together on their various platforms. And they have OEM, original equipment manufactured apps installed on their devices. And those apps are being enabled so that they can talk to one another. So your phone can talk to mine, generally via Bluetooth. There's a, there's like a, they call it a handshake being made. And so those apps talk to each other and say, well, my phone saw this phone via Bluetooth over the past 14 days. And basically over time, as all those phones connect virtually, you know, they meet momentarily, uh, if somebody said is infected, then they log into their own app, they report their infection, and then what that app will then do is tell all those people that they had been in contact with, say over the past 14 days, that there was an individual at some given point in time that you were in touch with or were within, you know, 6 feet of, let's say, and they were infected. And that would be a prompt for that person to either isolate and/or go get tested to find out if in fact they are infected. So basically, it's an awareness tool that tells you that you have been in touch with somebody or in proximity of somebody that was infected, and now is a good time to go get tested.