Mobile apps have been one of the major weapons in the fight against the Covid 19. contact-tracing Mobile App has played a major role in easing lockdown in China This app record symptoms and track users’ movements, and triggers an alarm if the device leaves a certain area which is tagged using geofencing method. The app also tells users if they have been near a person who has been confirmed or suspected of having the virus. China and South Korea have been successful in limiting the spread of the virus to a large extend using these mobile apps.
New studies conducted by University of Oxford shows that the spread of the novel corona virus is too fast to be contained by manual contact-tracing alone, and thus, recommends countries to explore the digital route to speed up their preventive actions. According to scientists, the traditional approach of manual case isolation, contact tracing and quarantine are not fast enough for the new corona virus, which has stunned the world for its high speed of transmission, infecting over 8.6 lakh people in just three months. And, by the time health authorities confirm a positive case and reach out to his/her contacts, the virus already infects a number of people. A delay of even a few days in finding the contacts could render these measures ineffective. this delay can be avoided by using a mobile phone app, if used by a sufficient number of people, Such an approach could keep incidence of new infections low.
Arogya Setu App is a Government of India initiative, which is designed to assist citizens by helping them find if they have been in contact with an infected person. The app uses GPS and Bluetooth on a smartphone to create a social graph. Based on that, it can tell if an asymptomatic person has crossed path with someone who has been infected with covid-19. If that happens, the asymptomatic person will get an alert followed by instructions on self isolation. To take advantage of it, users need to keep Bluetooth switched-on and enable location sharing on the smartphone.
Apple and Google have recently announced that they are jointly developing technology to alert people if they have recently come into contact with others found to be infected with coronavirus. This will allow an estimated 3 billion people to opt in to location tracking through Bluetooth on their smartphones for the purposes of combating the Covid-19 pandemic.
