within weeks of COVID-19 shutting down the world in 2020, teams from arch-rivals Apple and Google partnered on a rare joint project. They developed a way to register proximity of people using Bluetooth chips on iPhones and Android phones, enabling the creation of apps that allow someone who has tested positive for the virus to anonymously notify other users with whom they had been close in the days before. Those alerted to the exposure could then self-isolate, test, and quarantine, hoping to slow the spread of Covid.
Covid is still around, but the great experiment in semi-automated smartphone contact tracing is now coming to an end in the US, following similar lockdowns in many other countries as concerns about the virus subsided.
On May 11, the Biden administration will stop paying for the two cloud servers that underpin the US system and energy exposure tracking apps offered by individual states. States will now have to start their own servers, and in many cases redesign their applications, if they want to keep the alerts flowing. Although some, including California, are considering the idea, it remains to be seen if any will go ahead. The California Department of Public Health did not provide comment for this story at the time of publication.
VirginiaMassachusetts, and New Mexico confirmed last week that they will be removed, and Maryland was added to the closing list today. Wisconsin deactivated its app on April 3. “We were very clear from the beginning that it falls off when we no longer need it,” says Jeff Stover, chief of staff for the Virginia Department of Health, the first state agency in the US to release exposure notifications. “Doing what we said we’re going to do will instill a little more public confidence.”
Google and Apple, who said in 2020 FAQ that they would disable the system regionally when “no longer needed”, so far they are not taking their end offline. Apple spokeswoman Zaina Khachadourian and Google spokeswoman Christa Muldoon say the companies plan to continue supporting state exposure tracking apps that are updated to keep working after the federal shutdown.
At the height of the pandemic, millions of people in the US turned on exposure notifications, as Apple and Google call them. The system came as a way to make the relaxation of strict lockdown measures safer, allowing people to be close to each other without massively accelerating the spread of the coronavirus. Converting Bluetooth signals at the base of the system was inspired in part by the prototype of the US high school students. to automate contact tracing for Ebola in rural Africa.
Public health authorities insist that exposure notifications It has been a successpreventing infections by stirring up the people to isolate or test, and demonstrate the potential for public health applications. critics say too few Americans turned on exposure notifications so that they are truly useful. Concerns about whether anonymity would be preserved deterred some people from triggering the alerts, and states struggled with limited marketing budgets to fight back. Measures such as vaccinations, face masks and rapid tests did more to make people feel comfortable leaving home.