Contact Tracing Apps Were Big Tech ’s Best Idea for Fighting COVID-19. Why Haven’t They Helped?

When the Nevada Department of Health and Human Services launched COVID Trace, one of the nation’s first COVID-19 contact-tracing smartphone apps, on Aug. 24, state health authorities “strongly recommended” all 3 million-plus Nevadans download and use the app. But two and a half months later, adoption remained well short of that ambitious goal—the app has been downloaded just under 70,000 times as of Nov. 9, representing just under 3% of the state’s adult population. A total of zero exposures were registered in the app throughout the month of September, during which the state reported more than 10,000 new cases. One of the first positive test results logged into the app was submitted in early October by Nevada’s pandemic response director, who himself had contracted the virus. Nevada is currently reporting roughly 1,200 new COVID-19 cases daily, and the app doesn’t seem to be making a difference. While researchers have worked for months to develop COVID-19 vaccines and treatments, contact-tracing apps like COVID Trace have been touted as one of the technology world’s most promising contributions to the fight against the pandemic. But seven months into the U.S. outbreak, such apps have made slow progress across the country, hampered by sluggish and uncoordinated development, distrust of technology companies, and inadequate advertising budgets and messaging campaigns. “People are trying whatever they can think of, and this i...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: news