WA Notify tool has 1 million users in the first week of launch

The Washington Department of Health announced Friday that more than one million people have activated WA Notify, a smartphone tool that alerts residents of the state if they have spent time near another user who has tested positive for COVID-19.

Washington Launches Statewide COVID-19 Exposure Notification Tool

The tool launched on Monday and can be used by manually activating a setting on iPhones and through an app downloaded from the Google Play Store for Android. WA Notify has been launched in over 29 languages ​​and is completely voluntary.

A similar tool is in use in several other states, including Virginia, New York, and Colorado. Its launch in Washington, however, saw more users sign up to it in the first 24 hours than in any other state that currently uses it.

For those who haven’t activated it yet, Washington Health Secretary John Wiesman urged residents on Friday to consider participating.

“If you haven’t activated WA Notify yet, consider doing so,” he says. “Studies from the University of Oxford and Stanford show that the more people there are who use a tool like WA Notify, the more effectively it will protect our communities.”

WA must ‘take strong action’ to reduce risk of hospital overcrowding

WA Notify uses Bluetooth technology to exchange random codes with the phones of other nearby users, without revealing a user’s identity or location. If a user tests positive for COVID-19, they enter a state-provided verification code. Anyone who has been in proximity to that user in the past 14 days is then anonymously notified that they may have been exposed to the virus and should take “appropriate steps” to get tested and self-identified. quarantine if necessary.

The University of Washington tested the tool with students to help inform the possible statewide deployment.