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More than 735 thousand people have already downloaded the STAYAWAY COVID application, a number that today INESC TEC shared with SAPO TEK and which shows that, after an initial boom, it is incorporated into the contact tracking and situation alert application. the high risk of contagion is slowing down.
First, the application reached the Google Play store for Android and only later to the Apple App Store, for iPhone, and in the first days it began to be at the top of the downloads in the health areas of the two application stores . Soon it will also arrive at AppGallery, Huawei’s store, reaching a greater potential number of users.
With the help of news and advertising campaigns, the numbers grew, aided by frequent referrals from members of the government, and Prime Minister António Costa considered installing the app as a civic duty. But now they are increasing more slowly and are far from the desired coverage of 60% of the population, which, according to experts, would guarantee the greatest positive impact to help break the chains of contagion, identifying possible contacts that may go unnoticed or unidentified. in a manual screening.
15 codes already shared in the STAYAWAY COVID application
According to data shared by INESC TEC, yesterday 15 users had already put into the application the codes provided by the health authorities that indicate a positive test for COVID-19. However, there is no way to understand if more users could have used this information because they had positive diagnoses, because sharing the code is voluntary.
It is also unknown how many people these 15 at-risk users were in contact with – a proximity of less than 2 meters for about 15 minutes – in the last 14 days, because the entire process is anonymous. At the limit, they may not have any contact registered in the system, because the people close to them do not have the application installed or because they were in confinement.
SAPO TEK has tested the application from the beginning, still in beta, and keeps the application installed, but until now always with the message that no risk contacts have been registered. At least from people with the app. or with shared positive diagnoses, which does not mean that there were no other possibilities of contagion, so a false sense of security should be avoided.
What if the message changes to a high risk alert? This is one of the questions that readers have asked us and we have also tried to answer in the article with 27 questions about how the STAYAWAY COVID application works.
When the application is installed, the mobile phone will share, via Bluetooth, random identifiers, hi tokens, which do not reveal personally identifiable data. These codes are shared with a server that has been prepared to guarantee the security of the information, and where these tokens are compared with the codes collected by the mobile phone of a person who was identified as positive for COVID.
If you have been close to an infected person, you will receive an alert in the application, suggesting isolation and contact with the SNS 24 line. It is this contact that then initiates the entire verification process that can culminate in the COVID-19 test, and , if so, inserting the code into the app as well.
After recovery, and with the return to normal life, the application must be restarted and reinstalled to activate the monitoring process again.
Google and Apple have a new system that does not need to install the application
Following the alliance between Google and Apple that allowed the availability of APIs for the development of contact tracking applications in different countries, the companies also advanced with an update to their operating system to allow these alerts in a simplified way, always in partnership. with the health authorities, and without the need for a request.
The iOS update has already started to hit iPhones and is leaving many users confused. Francisco Maia, from the STAYAWAY COVID application development team, explains to SAPO TEK that this update (and development) was designed for countries that do not have an application, which is not the case in Portugal.
IOS users in Portugal also have to install the application to receive contagion alerts, as this involves connecting to the shared code information. However, they can only turn on iOS notifications, although they can only turn on iOS 13.7 notifications, but the process is always incomplete.
Useful when returning to school and work, and on public transport
The STAYAWAY COVI application was already part of the recommendations of the General Directorate of Higher Education in preparation for going back to school, along with masks, disinfection of spaces and tests. Today António Costa once again stressed that the application is especially useful in schools so that there can be a rapid alert in case of contagion.
The prime minister appealed to the installation of the application by students and teachers, but also stressed the importance in large companies, such as newspaper offices, where there are many people working simultaneously in the same space, and also recalled that the application it is most important for those who are regular users of public transport.
