A rare partnership between Google and Apple promised to slow COVID-19 - newly revealed data shows why it flopped in the US
As the world descended into COVID-19 chaos in the spring of 2020, Apple and Google announced a rare partnership.
Roughly 1 in 4 people activated the tech on their phones, on average, in states where the apps were available. And in those states, an average of just 2% of the people who tested positive for COVID-19 logged the information into the app — significantly limiting the value of the tool. To do this, the apps use phones' bluetooth sensors to detect occasions when users have been in close proximity with other people who also have the apps installed. If a user is diagnosed with the virus, they enter their positive diagnosis into the service. The service then checks the list of who they've been in close contact with in the last week or so, and sends them all notifications informing them about their exposure so they can quarantine or get tested.
And in Nevada, even though the equivelant of more than 50% of the state's population has adopted the smartphone apps, only 470 positive COVID-19 diagnoses have been entered into the service in the last year — just 0.157% of cases that occured in the state during the same timeframe. It's unclear how the lack of stats from the 10 states who didn't provide Insider with data on the number of cases logged might affect overall averages and totals. In interviews, public health experts and technologists identified multiple possible causes for the relatively low usage of the tools.
"It's certainly not as high as anyone would hope," said Adriane Casalotti, the chief of public and government affairs for the National Association of County and City Health Officials."But given the challenges with getting folks to even sign up for these services, and the lack of community conversation around them, especially in the last couple of months … I'm not as surprised.
Bryant Karras, chief informatics officer at Washington State Department of Health, says usage has grown in recent months, particularly after Apple built tools directly into iOS and once the state started sending automated texts to residents diagnosed with COVID-19 encouraging them to use the service. If the same data was prepared for a shorter timeframe, he said,"I think you'd be surprised at what we're seeing.
A 2020 research paper partly written by Google employees estimated that even at"relatively low levels of adoption" — which it pegged at 15% — smartphone-based contact-tracing could reduce infections of COVID-19 by 8% and deaths by 6%. However, the study appears to assume that the 15% of the population who install the service then go on to routinely enter any positive COVID-19 diagnoses they receive. The data suggests that, in practice, this is not happening.
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