Question: Have you turned on exposure notifications on your iPhone? Do you recommend doing so? If your region has an exposure notification app it directs you to download that state/regions app. Apps are currently available for a limited number of states, to include Virginia. Do you recommend downloading and using it?
Answer: Thanks to your question, I realized I had the option to turn exposure notifications on! (Clearly, I have not been paying attention to my iOS updates.) Anyway, after doing some reading, I did just attempt to turn the exposure notifications on. But… I live in Maryland and the state public health officials have not yet turned on exposure alerts. I can’t use the system yet, but that should soon change. Based on the news, it sounds like Maryland and DC are both soon (early October perhaps) deploying the “Exposure Notification Express” system. Upshot is — I do recommend downloading and using exposure notifications, including Covidwise if you live in VA (Figure 1).
I’ll elaborate a bit more in the bullets that follow, and if you’re interested in reading more, I found these articles from the Washington Post, Slate, and Vox especially helpful in coming to this recommendation. The exposure notification system:
- Was developed/built through an Apple/Google partnership and was first rolled out as an API that app developers could use to develop their own apps. In early September, Apple/Google modified the system so that state public health officials could use it off-the-shelf, thereby simplifying the process and minimizing additional cost outlays.
- Uses bluetooth signals to recognize whether you may have been exposed to coronavirus in the last 14 days (e.g. been in prolonged (15+ minutes) close contact with someone who tests positive)
- Does not spy on you. It does not collect any user data, even location data, except for 14-days worth of bluetooth beeps.
- Works like this: Basically, anytime your phone comes close to another phone using an iOS/Android operating system, it emits a series of bluetooth beeps that are random, but special to your phone. The app stores these beeps for 14 days. If a person you’ve met with over the last 14 days tests positive, the health department will give them a 6-digit code to enter into the app. The app then uses all the stored beeps to send out an alert to every phone that was in close proximity for 15+ minutes in the previous 14 days. No other information is shared. It’s basically a nudge to go get tested.
Since there’s no real privacy risk and a good benefit of receiving a nudge to get tested, it overall seems like a good thing to have and use. Plus the more of us who have and use it, the more helpful the app will be. As of 14 September, Virginia’s Covidwise app has been downloaded 515,824 times, with an estimated 12% of Virginians between the ages of 18 and 65 having downloaded it;155 Virginians have used the app to anonymously submit their positive test results.
Figure 1. Virginia’s Covidwise App
