Using the California Contact Tracking System, which was released on 10. It was launched on December 31st, almost half of all US citizens now have access to such an app. The services warn you if you have been around someone with Covid – 19 for too long. The Pandemic Technology Project is monitoring the apps as part of the Covid Tracing Tracker program, which tracks the development of contact tracking apps in the US and around the world.

The current apps are currently being used in 19 states and in Washington DC , Guam and Puerto Rico. A handful of other states are either in a pilot phase or have announced that they will consider smartphone-based exposure notifications.

The US is behind other countries As in several other US states that use the system developed by Google and Apple, the Californian app is also embedded in the operating system of newer iPhones: You just have to switch it on in the settings menu. Android users, on the other hand, have to download software, even if that is about to change.

Can these apps help? At the start of the pandemic, they were advertised to curb transmissions. Countries like Singapore and Australia started their services in the spring. In the absence of a coordinated national effort, the US states created a patchwork of systems that became available at different times and did not necessarily work across local borders.

Personal Protection The first batch of US apps came out in August, several months after those in other parts of the world. They are only now arriving in some areas where the disease is already widespread. In California, the most populous state in the United States, there are more and more cases, and many people are in lockdown.

According to many experts, it is already too late for the apps to broadcast could reduce drastically. However, the software is useful for another purpose, and that is to keep people personally safe and to know when to test them. When the vaccinations start and the cases drop again, experts say the apps will become important too.

No wonder weapon “On the individual level, it is more important today than three months ago because there is much more viral material circulating in the community than it was three months ago, ”said Rajeev Venkayya, who launched the United States’ first national strategy for pandemic preparedness in the year 2005 wrote.

Julie Samuels, head of the task force that developed the app for New York State, puts it this way: “In American society, people are really looking for a silver bullet , so for the one solution that Covid – 19 can stop. “But the right way to think about the app is that it is another protective layer. “If it just keeps one more person from getting infected, isn’t it worth it?”

The original version of this article was made as part of the “Pandemic Technology Project” of the Rockefeller Foundation under supports.

(vsz)