Two months ago, the state launched the NY COVID Alert app, which Governor Andrew Cuomo told New Yorkers could have a big impact in slowing the spread of the virus. “It’s taken a lot, and it’s really creative and smart, and I think it can make a big difference,” Cuomo said at his October 1st press briefing.
But since then, Cuomo hasn’t mentioned the app in more than a dozen briefings, and in the last two months just 800 people have been notified of a potential COVID-19 exposure through the app. There have been more than 180,000 new COVID infections in that time, according to the state.
Around 1.1 million New Yorkers have downloaded the app, about 5% of the state’s population, a far cry from the 60% adoption rate researchers say is preferable, though subsequent research has suggested any level of adoption can curb COVID cases. 2,700 New Yorkers diagnosed with COVID-19 had the app on their phones at the time, according to state officials.
“It’s really a very, very small percentage of positive cases,” said Dr. Denis Nash, an epidemiologist who teaches at CUNY’s Graduate School of Public Health. “There doesn’t seem to be any real systematic strategy to get [the app] out to a large number of people so it can really have the coverage and impact that it promises.”
Listen to Gwynne Hogan's report on WNYC:
Jonah Bruno, a spokesman for the state’s Health Department, said the agency is promoting the app on social media platforms and didn’t explain why the Governor hadn’t mentioned it since October 1st.
City Councilmember Steve Levin, an early booster of apps to help contact tracers, pointed to Canada, where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau went on national television to encourage downloads of the country’s contract tracing app. About 5.5 million Canadians, or 14% of the population, have downloaded it, and more than 6,800 people with COVID have used it to warn everyone they came close to about an exposure.
“I would really like it if the Mayor just mentioned this every single time they talked about COVID,” Levin said. “This is something very simple that anyone can do. It takes two seconds.”
According to New York State officials, Bloomberg Philanthropies and some federal money paid the $700,000 needed to develop the app, and all the digital advertising for the app has been donated. In order for a person who tests positive for COVID-19 to notify all those who they came in close contact with through the app, they have to talk to a contact tracer, get a code from them, then enter that code into the app.
That code unlocks a chain reaction, sending notifications to everyone with the app who came within six feet of you for at least 10 minutes, encouraging them to get tested. Of the 2,700 people with the app who tested positive for the virus, 900 entered the unique code into the app which set off the chain reaction, state officials say.
New York’s app uses the same Bluetooth technology developed by Apple and Google, now used in COVID apps for more than a dozen states, Canada and several European countries, to varying degrees of success. Concerns had been raised about the accuracy of the Bluetooth technology, as well as who has access to smartphones.
East Asian countries, like Singapore and Taiwan that have more masterfully controlled the spread of COVID-19, have used digital surveillance to a much higher degree, alongside other more invasive methods of controlling people’s movements. In Taiwan, for example, cell phone data is monitored to make sure you stay in quarantine, and if it's detected you’ve left, you could face $33,000 fines or even jail time.
Supporters of NY COVID Alert insist New York’s app was designed with privacy in mind, though some digital privacy experts have raised concerns that law enforcement could subpoena the contact tracing records (that goes not just for the app but for manual contact tracing as well). A bill passed by the state legislature would shield those records from law enforcement agencies but it’s been awaiting Cuomo’s signature since July.
The app doesn't use GPS to track locations, instead relying on Bluetooth technology, and doesn’t collect identifying information. It knows if two phones with the app came close to one another, but not where they are. Julie Samuels, the executive director of Tech NYC, helped coordinate development and roll out for NY COVID Alert.
“There are a lot of things we do to keep COVID numbers down that are fundamentally hard things. This is easy,” she said. “The thing that’s gonna make this thing successful is more people downloading it.”
