Covid Alert app: not much use to anyone
Covid numbers continue to drop here, but it’s no thanks to the Covid Alert app, which cost $20 million but has never helped much. It wasn’t that the app was broken, but rather that not enough people installed it, so that the basic premise that it could help in tracing contacts was never going to work.
Chris 13:13 on 2021-07-05 Permalink
$20m is basically 0 compared to the total spent on covid, so, from the government’s perspective, it was probably well spent vs the risk of not spending it and missing a chance to do something that could have helped.
Blork 13:16 on 2021-07-05 Permalink
I agree with Chris. There’s no hindsight when you start a project like that or enter into a pandemic, so you need to take some risks. In a parallel universe everyone used the app and we’re now cheering about how it was money well spent.
Also, it’s not like they just flushed the money down the drain. That $20M represents a lot of jobs, and possibly research that might come in handy elsewhere.
Daniel 13:25 on 2021-07-05 Permalink
I never understood why it didn’t take off more than it did. I will say I was waiting in a hospital in November (for a non-emergency appointment) and was surprised to see that there was not a mention of it on any of the screens or signage. Lots of stuff about covid, no mention of the app. And that seems like an ideal location/audience.
It does seem like the publicity push could have been better. I’m still glad they tried it.
Chris 13:36 on 2021-07-05 Permalink
>I never understood why it didn’t take off more than it did
Anecdotally, people I know didn’t want Apple/Google/government tracking them even more closely than they already do.
Tim S. 14:10 on 2021-07-05 Permalink
That”s too bad Chris. I’m normally one of those people, and I looked into the App as carefully as I could, being a non-tech person, and it seemed pretty secure. I had no problems installing it.
I suspect part of the problem is that our world during COVID was/is divided between those of us who could stay home and follow the news, and those who had to go out to work and maybe didn’t have the time to follow the latest developments as obsessively. The best use for it, as far as I can tell, would have been for those working in essential workplaces, and not me sitting at home.
James 14:25 on 2021-07-05 Permalink
I tried to install it but I only have an iPhone 6 so it never worked. Suspect a lot of people outside the 15-30 crowd had similar problems.
It was a good concept that respected privacy concerns.
John B 14:42 on 2021-07-05 Permalink
Well, the Quebec government initially refused to allow it, and some prominent provincial politicians, including Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, came out pretty strongly against it.
I don’t know if the BC or Alberta governments ever adopted it.
Disinformation and flip-flopping on the part of provincial authorities can’t have helped.
Marco 15:38 on 2021-07-05 Permalink
I installed it about a year ago and forgot about it. I just uninstalled it last week.
As a tech person I can say that there were no privacy concerns but I was baffled as to why Legault opted out when it was released last July. He waited until the October before he sent out a plea for Quebecers to use it after casting doubt on it for two months.
Bert 16:03 on 2021-07-05 Permalink
But it was optional. Look at places (i.e. countries) that required it for certain activities (e.g restaurants, shopping, etc.) Yes, personal liberties etc. I am not saying that either way is right or wrong. I never considered installing it, partly because I would not want to use it and was not required to.
Blork 16:26 on 2021-07-05 Permalink
I have a feeling the lack of overall pickup on that app was a combination of things, including:
(a) Overblown worries about “tracking” (which were overblown because most people don’t even understand what that means or how it works).
(b) Standard across-the-board confusion about pretty much everything to do with the pandemic, and this was just one more confusing thing, so it was easy to ignore.
(c) Overall lack of understanding about how mobile phones and telecommunications work, which is a much wider problem than you can even imagine. (Sure, almost everyone has a mobile phone, but aside from the basic apps like social media, messaging, and games, many people are utterly in the dark with regard to apps and networking, so things like the contact tracing app don’t even show up on their radar.)
dhomas 16:42 on 2021-07-05 Permalink
@James The iPhone 6 was eventually added to the compatibility list.
The app does not track location in any way. It doesn’t even have access to location data.
In simple terms, it uses Bluetooth and a unique identifier to detect if any two devices were in proximity of each other for a period of time. If one of those unique identifiers declares that they were infected, it notifies any other device that has been in contact with that device.
Google/Apple already know a tremendous amount about you. I think the worry here was that it’s government now “tracking” you. Many people I know were worried shadowy figures would crack down on them for minor infractions to the rules/laws on “rassemblements”.
The problem was definitely one of marketing and/or educating people about how it all worked, plus government officials being dumb.
CE 17:30 on 2021-07-05 Permalink
For the first few months that the app was available, I had an iPhone 6 so couldn’t install it. Eventually I had to upgrade the phone and installed it but half the time when I leave the house, I don’t bring my phone so it really wasn’t much use to me.
DeWolf 17:31 on 2021-07-05 Permalink
I’ve heard mixed things about how well it worked. In the winter I had a distanced outdoor meeting with somebody who turned out to have Covid. They reported their positive test through the app, and either we were really good at respecting the 2m distance or it just didn’t work. (I tested negative for what it’s worth.)
DeWolf 17:31 on 2021-07-05 Permalink
Sorry, I should clarify that I never got a notification through the app, and neither did any of that person’s other contacts.