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A Tech Powerhouse, U.S. Lags In Using Smartphones For Contact Tracing

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

In some parts of the world, smartphone apps have become essential tools for contact tracing, but not in the U.S., home to Google and Apple. Well, those two tech giants have now teamed up to help public health agencies use cellphones to track coronavirus infections. NPR's Jason Beaubien reports.

JASON BEAUBIEN, BYLINE: When Virginia launched its COVIDWISE app at the beginning of August, Huda Mohamed thought the app was a really good idea.

HUDA MOHAMED: I figured it was a great way of keeping myself COVID-safe 'cause I have an immunodeficiency.

BEAUBIEN: But for weeks, Mohamed, who's studying microbiology and dietetics at James Madison University, wasn't even sure it was working.

MOHAMED: I would be out and about, and I would wait for the notification, but the notification never came.

BEAUBIEN: Then campus reopened. Students flooded back to Harrisonburg. Within a week, there were so many COVID cases on campus the university had to shut down in-person classes. That's when a push notification popped up on Mohamed's phone, saying she had 12 potential exposures.

MOHAMED: It was a little scary because, like, I don't know exactly when that could've happened. And I started, like, in my head retracing my steps, thinking about who I was around that day.

BEAUBIEN: Despite that initial notification on her home screen, when she opened the app, it said zero exposures. Mohamed wasn't sure what to do. She doesn't have health insurance or a doctor to call. So...

MOHAMED: Like I said, I've been avoiding people this week.

BEAUBIEN: It turns out she didn't have to. The push notification from Apple was a weekly summary of potential but not yet confirmed exposures. Mobile apps that use the Google/Apple technology monitor Bluetooth signals of users who are within six feet of each other for at least 15 minutes.

JEFF STOVER: It doesn't collect location, doesn't collect names.

BEAUBIEN: Jeff Stover with the Virginia Department of Health says that if one of the app users later tests positive, they can anonymously alert other users. Stover says despite some confusion with the push notifications, the rollout of the app is going well. With more than a half a million downloads, Virginia has more users than any other state. And Stover says the app can reach people who traditional contact tracers would never even track down. For example...

STOVER: If I went to the local hardware store four days ago and I stood in line for 15 minutes, you know, 'cause it was just taking a while and I ended up being positive, I have no idea who that person was in front of me in line. And at least through an exposure notification app, that person might get an exposure notification.

BEAUBIEN: But the reality is that very few people are getting those notifications. Since Google and Apple launched their platform in late May, the U.S. has recorded more than 4.5 million additional cases of COVID. These smartphone systems have sent out alerts on only a few hundred of them. Other countries which have launched national apps, such as Germany, Ireland and Singapore, have had far higher use of these systems.

VIVIAN SINGLETARY: And that really comes back to how public health operates in the U.S.

BEAUBIEN: Vivian Singletary is the director of the Public Health Informatics Institute in Atlanta, which has hosted several forums for public health officials on this new technology. Short of the federal government issuing an app, each state has had to build its own.

SINGLETARY: We do not have national public health law, per se, that governs everybody across every state.

BEAUBIEN: The notification apps also require relatively new smartphones, which the elderly and some others at high risk for the disease might not have. Also, to protect users' privacy, the system doesn't report the exact time, location or duration of any potential exposure. Huda Mohamed, who was initially excited about the app, says it's less powerful than she'd hoped.

MOHAMED: I think I expected more, honestly. I expected it to actually notify me, like I said, like, when it happened.

BEAUBIEN: Despite this, several additional states are expected to launch apps in the coming weeks.