Written by Shaila Mehta
As the Coronavirus situation worsens in the state of California and across the world, Governor Gavin Newsom announced that there is a new smartphone tool that can people can use to see if they have spent time near someone who has tested positive for COVID-19. This app does not track the location of the smartphone, but uses Bluetooth sense whether it is within 6 feet within another phone for longer than 15 minutes.
NEW: CA has partnered with @Google and @Apple to launch a #COVID19 exposure notification app, CA Notify.
Starting Thursday, you can opt in to get push notifications on your phone if you have been exposed to COVID-19.
This is 100% private & secure.
More: https://t.co/xtXFwVeWc2
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) December 7, 2020
Newsom ensures that the app is “private, anonymous, and secure” with help from Apple and Google as partners in this endeavor. This tool is being implemented as Calfornia’s cases have been steadily increasing.
Currently, more than 80% of California residents are barred from leaving their homes because of Newsom’s latest stay-at-home order, which shut down all in-person dining, salons, playgrounds, and more in Southern California. However, with already strict regulations getting even more strict, fewer and fewer people are willing to follow them, including law enforcement.
The new app will keep a record of possible COVID-19 exposure sites, but user info will remain anonymous to other users of the app. The main goal is to raise awareness of possible exposure to the Coronavirus without crossing a line and revealing personal information about people who have tested positive.
Governor Newsom and other government officials of California are hopeful that the new app will provide them an additional way to protect people from being exposed to COVID-19.
“Even if we don’t have tens of millions of people that participate in this program, the more people that participate in it, the more effective this program can be,” Newsom said during a news briefing Monday. “Again, (this is) another tool in our toolkit in terms of impacting the spread and transmission rate of this virus.”
Photo of North Carolina’s COVID tracking app via AP Photo/Chris Carlson
