Since launching on July 6, the Covid Tracker app has been downloaded 1.3 million times in eight days and has started collecting cases of infection.
“We are delighted with the acceptance rate. It has gone beyond initial expectations, “says Colm Harte, technical director of NearForm, the company that made the application.
Like all contact tracking apps, it uses a phone’s Bluetooth signal to exchange information with another device that also runs the app when users are closer than 2 meters to each other for more than 15 minutes.
The information exchanged is anonymous and stored in a phone log, which health authorities can ask users to share if they are diagnosed with Covid-19. The registry can then be used to track anonymous contacts, who are alerted through the app about a possible infection.
The app uses the system enabled by Apple and Google on their mobiles so that the information can be exchanged independently of the operating system of each user’s mobile.
The app’s price of € 850,000 (£ 773,000) is “very cheap” as the average cost of identifying each case of infection is € 42,000 , says L’Estrange, a social scientist at the University of Dublin. who has studied tracing.
The Irish Department of Health attributes Ireland’s rapid acceptance rate to people’s trust in government, a desire to do the right thing, and a good user experience based on behavioral research and inquiry.
Meanwhile, in Spain, the Radar COVID app has already finished its pilot and is analyzing its results before its deployment.
