UW researchers develop new program to improve COVID alert app
Posted Oct 16, 2021 08:30:00 PM.
Researchers at the University of Waterloo are developing a program that could be added to the COVID alert app to better target vaccination campaigns, while keeping individual privacy in mind.
The app is used on smartphones and is based on the Google-Apple exposure notification API (GAEN API). The Canadian government built the app around the GAEN API to track positive COVID-19 cases. It alerts individuals if they have been in contact with a positive case.
The add-on researchers are developing would target vaccinations, to allow vaccination strategies without people giving up private information. Essentially, it would keep a record of the number of contacts, but no location or personal data.
“We don’t want to be able to identify who someone contacts or where they go,” said Mark Penney, a researcher in the Department of Applied Mathematics at the University of Waterloo. “All that we need to know is how many total contacts someone may have. The app keeps a cryptographic token, like a digital handshake, for any contact. It would then prioritize people who have the most contacts for vaccinations.”
They claim their strategy would nearly half the number of vaccines required to curb COVID-19 cases by focusing on those most likely to be vectors for spreading the virus, rather than just hotspots.
“The app might tell you, if you were an essential worker and coming into contact with lots of people, that you should get a vaccine,” said Penney. “If you’re a person working from home and not meeting many people, you probably wouldn’t get a notification to get vaccinated. The point is to target the people who are most likely to spread the disease.”
The program could also be used for other infectious diseases. For instance, it could inform people if they should get the flu shot based on their contact patterns.
You can read the full paper here.
