New contact tracing apps stir hope for virus fighters in U.S. states

OAKLAND, Calif., Nov 19- A new wave of mobile apps that help track exposure to the coronavirus is coming to U.S. states ahead of the holidays as public health officials bet that recently introduced features from Apple Inc and Alphabet Inc’s Google will significantly boost adoption and impact. Colorado, Maryland and District of Columbia launched…

By Paresh Dave

OAKLAND, Calif., Nov 19 (Reuters) – A new wave of mobileapps that help track exposure to the coronavirus is coming toU.S. states ahead of the holidays as public health officials betthat recently introduced features from Apple Inc andAlphabet Inc’s Google will significantly boostadoption and impact.

Colorado, Maryland and District of Columbia launchedexposure-notification apps with the new technology in the lastmonth, garnering over 2.3 million users combined, according totheir public health departments. California, Washington andother states expect to follow in the next month, officials said.

Complementing human contact-tracers, the smartphone apps useBluetooth signals to track when people are in close contact andanonymously alert users when a recent contact tests positive.They emerged as promising tools early in pandemic, but technicalshortcomings, privacy concerns and dismissive attitudes in theUnited States toward safety measures undercut their benefits.

The tide may turning as cold weather and lockdown fatiguethreaten a global surge in cases.

In September, Apple and Google, dominant makers ofsmartphone software, launched a system called ExposureNotifications Express that allows public health authorities tolaunch apps without writing code, setting the stage for broaderrollouts and better apps.

“This is one of the many tools in the toolbox, and we needto use them all,” said Sarah Tuneberg, Colorado’s senior advisorfor coronavirus containment.

University of California campuses are piloting aprospective statewide system based on the new Expresstechnology, starting at San Diego, where it has been used tonotify contacts in more than 20 positive cases. Over 18,000 UCSan Diego staff and students, more than 50% of the on-campuspopulation, are using the system.

SPEEDY NOTIFICATIONS

Many governments in U.S. states and elsewhere spent millionsof dollars and countless staff hours on development to launchapps before Express arrived.

Apps in Germany and England each have seen about 20 milliondownloads since summer launches. Yet that remained short of thecritical mass experts say is needed. Both countries have seen amajor resurgence in virus cases over the past month.

In Singapore, where the virus is mostly contained, abouthalf the population now uses the TraceTogether app, which isgradually being made mandatory for activities including schooland travel.

The United States has lagged, with about 6 million peoplehaving tried exposure notification apps since the first onedebuted in August, according to data from the 18 states and twoterritories that made apps available. (For a detailed breakdown,see:)

By Christmas, nearly 50% of the U.S. population will haveaccess to an exposure notification app, doubling coverage fromearly October, according to Reuters’ review.

Colorado’s roll-out has become a textbook case forproponents of the technology. Google and Apple also recentlystarted notifying their users about new app launches, and thenudges helped Colorado quickly get about a fifth of itsresidents to adopt the technology, Tuneberg said.

“We really wanted to get out there before, but thetechnology wasn’t baked yet,” she said.

Colorado devised an efficient way to trigger notifications.To prevent false alerts, users enter a state-provided code toverify a positive test. It was taking days for backlogged caseinvestigators to send the codes, which has contributed to poorfollow-through in many states, with fewer than half of positiveusers entering their code.

So Colorado last week started automatically texting codesusing phone numbers from testing records. Lag time is now hours,not days, and follow-through is up among users. The downside isthat people who do not use the app get text messages from thestate that they need to ignore.

Other states are reviewing Colorado’s approach.

“Time is of the essence,” said Dr. Katherine Feldman,Maryland’s head of contact tracing. “You want to identifycontacts and get them to isolate as quickly as possible.”

(Reporting by Paresh Dave; Additional reporting by DouglasBusvine in Berlin. Editing by Jonathan Weber and David Gregorio)