Washington State Launches COVID-19 Exposure Notification App Using Google and Apple Technology

Washington state has unveiled a new app to let residents know if they’ve been exposed to someone diagnosed with COVID-19, as infection rates in the state climb to an average of 2,700 cases per day .

WA Notify, announced Monday morning, is a free app that uses technology developed through a joint effort by Apple and Google called the Exposure Notification System. The app takes advantage of low-energy Bluetooth signals emitted by smartphones to detect and remember interactions, allowing people to be notified if they’ve been around someone who has subsequently tested positive for COVID. It does not collect any personal information to identify app users or track their movements.

“It quickly passes the information to people who were close contacts to watch for symptoms, to inform them of testing possibilities, to self-quarantine and if they are infected, to isolate them,” the secretary said. at Washington Health, Dr. John Wiesman. .

Health officials are eager to find a new tool to help curb the spread of COVID. In western Washington, the number of new daily cases rose more than six-fold from September to November. A recent report from King County found that about a third of people who tested positive for COVID were unaware they had been in contact with someone who was infected and not linked to an outbreak.

Officials say the app does not use GPS and will not replace contact tracing or case investigations – a job that has been overwhelmed in many areas due to the increase in the number of cases. Local and state investigators will work in support of the application, and the state has hired more investigators, bringing the number to 700 workers.

Now the challenge is to make the public aware of the app and get them to install it. In states with similar applications, adoption rates have been low, and it’s unclear what difference the technology will make.

But even less widespread use will have benefits, health officials said. A university study predicted that an adoption rate of 15% would further reduce infections by 11% and deaths by 15%, said Lacy Fehrenbach, assistant secretary of state for the COVID-19 response.

Here is how WA Notify works.

• Smartphones that are running WA Notify and have Bluetooth turned on continuously send and receive signals from other phones. These signals are shared as a random code that changes frequently and creates a log of other devices they are in close proximity.
• If someone tests positive for COVID, a health care worker determines whether that person is using WA Notify. If this is the case, the infected person receives a code which they enter into the application. This triggers a signal to other WA Notify users that they have potentially been exposed.
• The WA Notify app is configured to track exposures that could lead to infection, which is defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as being within six feet of another person for at least 15 minutes within 24 hours. . .
• The code is only sent to people who were within range during the time the infected person was potentially contagious, which is determined by investigators.
• The app does not identify any of the parties or reveal where the exposure took place, including whether it took place indoors and outdoors.
• The person who receives a notification is asked to quarantine themselves and get tested for COVID.

IPhone users can activate the tool by enabling exposure notifications in their settings. Android users can download the Washington Exposure Notification app from the Google Play Store.

The most important potential health benefit of the app will be to warn people who interact anonymously in public spaces, on a bus or in a grocery store, for example, or when an infected person cannot remember. not of all the places she’s been and people. they have been close. Since the app does not track people’s locations, it will not help identify hot spots for transmission. People who don’t have a smartphone will also miss out.

In April, digital contact tracing was the hottest tech solution to helping curb COVID. Seattle alone spawned multiple efforts, including CovidSafe, a collaboration between the University of Washington and Microsoft; NextTrace, an initiative linked to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle; and COVID Trace, a project started by three Seattle engineers with prior experience at Moz, Google, Uber and elsewhere.

So why did it take almost eight months for a statewide app to get here?

Although several projects were launched in the spring, they were not immediately ready for widespread deployment. The technology initially announced by Apple and Google required states to create their own apps and manage notifications. There was no federal leadership for digital notification and states struggled to find their own solutions. In early September, the tech giants released an updated version of the app that was more out of the box, with the Association of Public Health Laboratories handling notifications.

Even as technological solutions improved, Washington still had to act with caution in order to protect privacy concerns and address fairness concerns, Wiesman said. This summer, the state convened an oversight committee that included security and civil liberties experts as well as leaders representing people of color and other communities disproportionately affected by the virus.

With committee approval, earlier this month, officials opened a pilot test of WA Notify. Some 3,500 UW students, staff and faculty have used the technology, and researchers report that the test went well.

As of last week, 17 U.S. states and territories were implementing exposure notification programs. Washington as well as Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland, and Washington DC run programs based on Exposure Notification Express. In September, California and Oregon announced that they would also pilot applications using the technology.

Custom applications are used in Alabama, Delaware, Guam, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wyoming. Many of these apps still use elements of the Apple and Google system or work with the Association of Public Health Laboratories, which should allow notifications to continue to work as people move between states.

Nevada uses an app created by COVID Trace of Seattle. It was launched in August and incorporates Exposure Notification Express technology.

“In terms of privacy, what Apple and Google have provided is the gold standard,” said Dudley Carr, one of the founders of COVID Trace.

Carr said the app is working fine. From anonymized data, they know that each positive case triggers two to three notifications. So far 100,000 people in the state of 3 million have installed the app; their goal is to triple or quadruple that number and interest increases as the number of cases increases.

Washington is launching a $ 2 million marketing campaign this week to raise awareness of WA Notify. Officials are currently planning to send push alerts to phones using both iPhone and Android operating systems, which would encourage people to install the app. Whether they do it or not is up to them.