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The South African government’s COVID-19 contact tracing initiative, assisted by the COVID-19 Alert SA app, has not helped the country meet its contact tracing objectives.
This is according to Wits University professor Shabir Madhi, who told the Sunday Times that contact tracing has never been successful locally.
Contact tracing is a strategy that aims to slow the spread of COVID-19 in a country by notifying those who have come into contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19.
The COIVD-19 Alert SA application from South Africa aimed to offer an automatic contact tracing solution using exposure notification frameworks developed by Google and Apple for Android and iOS smartphones.
Madhi, however, said that the implementation of this app was little more than wishful thinking, adding that it is a “false belief that technology is going to save the day.”
“When it comes to tracking, we’ve never been able to hit a target for that strategy to be successful,” he said.
“You need to track about 75% of close contacts and on average each person has 120 close contacts. We have never come close to achieving those goals. “
The COVID-19 Alert SA app has been touted as a crucial tool by the government, and international visitors must install the app before entering South Africa.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has also urged citizens to install the app so they can be notified when they come in contact with someone who has since tested positive for COVID-19.
It is important to note that while the COVID-19 Alert SA app failed to meet contact tracing goals, it is still a useful tool to determine if you may have been exposed to the virus.
How does it work
The COVID-19 Alert SA application, which was released earlier this year, uses Bluetooth and runs in the background once installed.
The application uses Bluetooth signals to exchange random codes with other users of the COVID Alert SA application. This happens when their smartphones are within two meters of each other for more than 15 minutes.
The codes that are exchanged are stored in a register on each phone for two weeks.
When an app user tests positive for COVID-19, they can report this information on the app anonymously.
Your device then uploads all the random codes that it has logged for the last two weeks to the exposure notification server, which then sends these codes to the other users of the application.
If there is a match, the user is notified that they have been in contact with the person who tested positive for COVID-19.
The application remains completely voluntary and keeps users’ information completely safe thanks to its Bluetooth functionality.
The identity and location of the device users are never interchanged as all the app does is track the proximity of the devices and how long they are in contact with each other.
The application does not use the GPS functionality of the device nor does it track the user’s location.
You can download the COVID Alert SA application from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.
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