Tech-assisted Covid-19 tracking is having some issues

A smartphone app built for the state of Utah displaying coronavirus test sites. Nearly a month after Utah launched its Healthy Together app to augment the state’s contact-tracing efforts by tracking phone locations, state officials confirmed that they haven’t done any contact tracing out of the app yet. Instead, people who download the app have been able to ‘assess their symptoms and get testing if appropriate’, Dunn said last week. — AP

PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island: Harnessing today's technology to the task of fighting the coronavirus pandemic is turning out to be more complicated than it first appeared.

The first US states that rolled out smartphone apps for tracing the contacts of Covid-19 patients are dealing with technical glitches and a general lack of interest by their residents. A second wave of tech-assisted pandemic surveillance tools is on its way, this time with the imprimatur of tech giants Apple and Google. But those face their own issues, among them potential accuracy problems and the fact that they won't share any information with governments that could help track the spread of the illness.