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It is only one of the tools that can be useful to try to reduce the contagion and the effects of the new coronavirus pandemic, but its success is proportional to the number of people who use it. The Portuguese tracking application Stayway Covid arrived this Friday, three weeks after it began to be available to the public, with 925 884 downloads, between the iOS (iPhone) and Android mobile operating systems.
Last Friday there were 773 thousand downloads, which will mean approximately a similar number of users, although INESC TEC, which created the application, has no way of knowing. In other words, in a week there was an increase of 20% and, now, the app will already reach about 9% of the Portuguese population, a difficult calculation to quantify since its effectiveness also depends on some factors: it is necessary to keep the Bluetooth on (there may be places where it is less accurate or effective) and for technical reasons you may want to visit the app daily.
This last situation occurs because, although it is assumed that there are automatic alerts on the phone if we have been in contact with someone infected in the last 14 days, there may be situations in which the alert is only given if we go to the app or that it has been automatically uninstalled – there are models that do it if we use little.
For Dinheiro Vivo, the Shared Services of the Ministry of Education indicate that 46 infected people have already put the code in the application, which generated 53 contacts for the SNS24 line of people who received a notification that they will have been in contact with someone with covid-19.
A week ago, only 17 had been infected using the code generated by the SNS testing system and putting it in the application (which generated 32 calls to the SNS24), which means that the number has increased as there are more cases and more people with the application in Portugal. However, the number of calls made to the SNS24 has not been proportional.
José Manuel Mendonça, leader of INESC TEC, who created the application integrated in a European consortium called D3PT and which uses as a basis a mechanism developed by Google and Apple called GAEN, recalled last week that “every infected person who puts the code in the application is an important gain, because it can generate alerts in dozens of people that can thus avoid an important chain of contagion. ”That is why the authors of the application, public health experts and the Prime Minister himself, who today returned to request the use of Stayway Covid both upon their return to school and in face-to-face work, they have requested its widespread use.
From the point of view of user growth, the Portuguese tracking application seems to be growing at a good pace and, if the trend of this third week continues (it may slow down), it is expected to reach 15% of the Portuguese population, around 1, 5 million people, still in October. This value already appears with the potential to make an even bigger difference.
The Prime Minister, António Costa, at the public presentation session of the Portuguese covid-19 digital projection application “Stayaway covid”, on September 1 (RUI MANUEL FARINHA / LUSA)
Does the application reduce contagion?
Contrary to what was thought in April, the tracking application may perform well with much lower deployment values than previously thought, according to recent studies. In Spain, an analysis after some tests with its Radar Covid app, showed in August that if 20% of the population joins and participates, infections can be reduced by up to 30% compared to what would happen without the app.
Two weeks ago, a study by the University of Oxford and Google, UK, indicated that if 15% of the population adhere to the application (and it works well), infections can be reduced by 15% (with a reduction expected 11% of deaths from covid-19).
Portugal seems to be on the way to approach some countries with better utilization rates, such as Ireland (25%) or Germany (20%), well above France, with around 3% and where the application was a failure even to use a different technology from the rest of Europe.
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