As Europe faces 2nd wave, tracing apps lack impact
LONDON— Mobile apps tracing new COVID- 19 cases were touted as a key part of Europe’s plan to beat the coronavirus outbreak. Seven months into the pandemic, virus cases are surging again and the apps have not been widely adopted due to privacy concerns, technical problems and lack of interest from the public.
Britain, Portugal and Finland this month became the latest to unveil smartphone apps that alertpeople if they’ve been near someone who turned out to be infected so they can seek treatment or isolate — a key step in breaking the chain of contagion.
But a few countries have scrapped their tracing apps and others that have rolled themout have found so few users that the technology is not very effffffffffffective. The adoption rate goes from about a third of the population in Finland and Ireland, to 22% in Germany and a meager 4% in France.
Healthoffifficials initially targeteda60% adoptionrate, an optimistic goal based on an OxfordUniversitystudyfrom April, although researchers noted a lower uptake still helps if othermeasures, suchas social distancing, are enforced.
KevinKelly, an accountant in Limerick, Ireland, says his country’s app is easy to use and helps gauge local infection trends by showing how many cases each county has. Hemainly uses the check-in feature to report his symptoms daily, butworries that only a fraction of the other 1.3 million users do, too.
“Everyone downloaded it but I’mnot surewho is regularly using it,” said Kelly, 43.
The exposure alert func
tion has so far been less useful: he hasn’t received any. “Unless there’s a huge surge, which I suppose it may happen, that’s when we’ll see how effffffffffffective it is.”
Places that have had the most success in getting people to voluntarily use virus-tracing apps tend to be smaller countries in Northern Europe where trust in the government tends to be higher andwherepeople are comfortable with newtechnologies.
Finland’s app quickly becameoneofEurope’smost popularwhen it launched at the start of September, racking up about 1million downloads in the fifirst 24 hours. Downloads have kept rising roughly a third of the country’s 5.5million people now have it.
“I’ve gotten several calls from people in their eighties calling to know how the application works,” said Aleksei Yrttiaho, a spokesman for the Finnish Institute for Health andWelfare.
Public trust in the government helps allay concerns aboutprivacy and government surveillance fifirst raised when some countries launched tracing apps months earlier.
Finnish users said they felt it was a civic responsibility to install it.
“It’s our duty to take of care of the health of our fellowcitizens and those close to us,” said William Oesch, a photographer in Helsinki.
Ella Ahmas, a 23-year-old business student at Aalto University, said she was surprised the government had been able to persuade so many people to download it, when Finns have been less willing to use simpler methods like wearingmasks on public transport.
Ahma s a nd Oes c h shrugged offff privacy issues, andnotedtheirpersonaldata was already held by the likes of Google and Facebook.
Most European tracing apps are built on a Google-Apple smartphone interface that usesBluetoothtechnology to anonymously log the proximity of any other smartphones with the app installed. It does not track the phone’s whereabouts. Users who test positive for COVID-19uploadanonymous codes to alert otherswho’ve been in close contact. The design is aimed at preserving user privacy, and that might be one factor helping adoption.
Dr. AmyActon says she is now working to
something more pervasive than the coronavirus: fear.
Actonmadea prerecorded appearance Thursday evening during an Ohio State University alumni association virtual ceremony to accept an award for serving as the director of the Ohio Department of Health throughout early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Acton left her role as the department’sdirector June 11 andresignedas a chiefhealth adviser toGov. MikeDeWine on Aug. 4. She took a job at the Columbus Foundation as the organization’s director of kindness and started there earlier this month.
In that role, Acton said she’s focused on building a stronger community. She’s also working on helping Columbus combat fear and hatredwith “kindness,” referring to it as “another layer of swiss cheese” in a nod to an analogy she pop
Dr. Amy Acton, former director of theOhio Department of Health, accepted an award from Ohio StateUniversity’s alumni association Thursday night. ularized during her time as the state health director.
“There is a contagionthat I feel, sometimes that ismore insidious than just the virus and we know what it is. We all feel it every day. It’s fear, it’s feeling uncertain, it’s ambiguity we are all having to tolerate,” Acton said. “So I’m working on a project that I feel, to me, is the antidote.”
In her 16months as health director, Acton became a hero to someand a villain to others. She garnered praise from national experts and took on a rock star status, inspiring to dress up in lab coats, T- shirts, a bobblehead and catchphrases.
But, she was also heavily criticized by some Ohioans and politicians who blamed her for the coronavirus shutdown that hurt many businesses and the economy as a whole. Acton, who is Jewish, was at times also the target of antisemitism.
“I had probably the honor of a lifetime to serve on behalf of Ohio and to work for just an governor, who, to day, with my team at ODH and with colleagues all over the state is fifighting every day on the front lines,” Acton said.
Inher briefaddress toOhio State’s alumni association, Acton credited her fellow Buckeyes for helping her throughthepandemic. Acton said she turned to them for helpwhenever she neededit as health director and plans todosoagainin her newjob.
Colleges across the country are strugglingto salvagethefall semester amid skyrocketing coronavirus cases, entire dorm complexes and frat houses underquarantine, andflflaring tensionswith local community leaders over spread of the disease.
Many major are determined to forge
despitewarning signs, as evidenced by the expanding slate of football games occurring Saturday. The football-obsessed SEC begins its season with fans in stadiums. Several teams in other leagues have had to postpone games because of outbreaks among players and staffffffffffff.
Institutions across nation saw spikes of thousands of cases days after opening doors in the last month, driven by students socializing with little or no social distancing. School andcommunity leaders have tried to rein in the virus by closing bars, suspending students, adding mask requirements, andtoggling between in-person and online instruction as case numbers rise and fall.
Tensionovertheoutbreaks is starting to boil over in college towns.
Faculty members from at least two universities have held no-confifidence votes in recent weeks against their top leaders, in part over reopeningdecisions. Government leaders want the UniversityofWisconsin-Madison to send its students home. Republican FloridaGov. Ron DeSantis, alarmed by what he sees as draconian rules on college campuses, said he is drawing up a “bill of rights” for college students.
InRhode Island, Gov. Gina
Raimondo, a Democrat, last week blamed outbreaks at two colleges for a surge of virus cases that boosted the state’s infection rate high enough to put it on the list of places whose residents are required to quarantine when traveling to NewYork, NewJersey andConnecticut.
andthegovernment imposes new restrictions to control the disease. Some lawmakers have criticized the government for implementing the ruleswithout parliamentary approval.
Speakers at the rally denied they were conspiracy theorists, they werestandingupforfreedom of expression and human rights.
DanAstin-Gregory, a leadership trainer, acknowledged the deaths and suffering caused by the demic, but said the response to COVID-19 has been out of proportion to the threat caused by the disease.
“We are tired of mongering resentation of the facts,” he told the crowd. “We are tired of the restrictions to our freedoms.”
The government earlier this week ordered a 10 p.m. curfew on bars and restaurantsnationwide, alongwith tougher facemask requirementsandincreasedfifines for non-compliance. It has also banned social gatherings ofmore but there is anexemptionfor protests as long as organizers submit a risk assessment and comply with social distancing rules.
Before the demonstration began, policesaidtheywould encourage protesters to followthe rules, but theywould take enforcement action if protesters failed to comply.
As the demonstration began, offifficers in high-visibility vests surgical masks were visible around
perimeter of square but there was no effort to silence speakers or prevent protesters from gathering.
The atmosphere turned tense later in the afternoon
insoft capswere replaced by others wearing riot helmets shields. As some protesters shouted, “You’re part of the tyranny,” others sang, “All you need is love.”
Saturday’s demonstration came a week after a similar event during which thousands ofpeople crowdedinto Trafalgar Square. Police said several officers were hurt during that event when a “smallminority” of protesters became
Britain has Europe’s worst death toll, with nearly 42,000 confirmed deaths
to COVID-19. Newinfections, hospitalizations and deaths have risen sharply in recent weeks.
owned Sinopharm subsidiary CNBG has given the vaccine to 350,000 people outside its clinical which have about 40,000 people enrolled, a top CNBG executive said recently.
Another company, SinovacBiotechLtd., has injected 90% of its and family members, or 3,000 people, under the emergency- use provision, CEOYinWeidong said. It has also provided tens of thousands of rounds of its CoronaVac to the Beijing city government.
Separately, Chinese military has approved the use of a vaccine it developed with CanSino Biologics Inc., a biopharmaceutical pany, in military personnel.
“The people to have priority in emergency use are the vaccine researchers
the vaccinemanufacturers because when the pandemic comes, if these people are infected then there’s no way to produce the vaccine,” Yin said.
Now, large Chinese including telecomgiantHuawei andbroadcasterPhoenix TV have announced they’re working Sinopharm to get the vaccine for their employees.
Several people who say
work in “front- line” organizations have said on socialmedia that theirworkplaces have offffffffffffered vaccinations for 1,000 yuan ($150). Theydeclinedto comment, saying they would need permission from their organizations.
In an established but limited practice, experimen
medications have been approved historically for use when are still in
third and last phase of human trials. Chinese companies have four vaccines in phase 3 — two from Sinopharm, each from Sinovac and CanSino.
The Chinese government referenced theWorld Health Organization’s emergency-use principles to create its own through a strict process, Health Commission offifficial Zheng Zhongwei said at a news conference Friday.
He said there have been no serious side effffffffffffects in the clinical trials. “We’vemade it very clear
COVID-19 vaccine we put into emergency use are safe,” Zheng said. “Their safety can be but
efficacy is yet to be determined.”