Covid-19: How smartphone apps can help ‘contact trace’ the new coronavirus

The Private Kit mobile app aims to help authorities with contact tracing efforts to curb the spread of a novel coronavirus. — Reuters

OAKLAND, California: A global race is on to develop smartphone apps and other types of mobile phone surveillance systems to track and contain the spread of the novel coronavirus.

The process known as "contact tracing", which is used to control the spread of infectious diseases, was boosted last week when the top two smartphone software makers, Alphabet Inc's Google and Apple Inc, said they were collaborating on apps that can identify people who have crossed paths with a contagious patient and alert them.