The COVID-19 contact-tracing app is here!
The app is available for Android devices on the Google Play Store and on the Apple App Store for iPhones.
The 'COVID Alert SA' app, which is published by the South African National Department of Health, is a free exposure notification app.
The app is designed to let you know when you have been in close contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19 by anonymously keeping track of your contact with everyone else using it over a two-week period.
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"Contact tracing is a process used to slow the spread of infectious diseases like COVID-19. Contact tracing means working with people who contract COVID-19 to identify their ‘close contacts’ – that means people they have been in direct contact with over the past 14 days and possibly infected with COVID 19 as a result. Doing this manually takes time, and there’s always a risk of missing close contacts," the Department of Health explains.
As mentioned, the app is used anonymously, so it does not record your name or location. Instead, every device is assigned a unique code, and using Bluetooth, it shares that code with other phones running the app nearby.
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"COVID Alert SA makes contact tracing happen quickly and efficiently. This app helps us to work together to stop the spread of COVID-19 using Bluetooth contact-tracing technology – which simply tracks close contact (proximity) between smartphones, and not the actual location of the smartphones," the Department of Health adds.
The alert process works in such a way that the Department of Health sends an SMS with a PIN number to anyone who tests positive. As a result, those who have been in proximity with that person will also be alerted, without disclosing the identity of the infected person or any other details.
To download South Africa's official Covid-19 tracing app, go to the Google Play Store for Android phones, or on the Apple App store for iPhones.
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IMAGE CREDIT: Pexels
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