BEIJING – China has launched a new mobile application that lets peoplecheck their risk of catching the widely spreading Coronavirus.
The application, named “Close Contact Detector” lets the user know if atany point they are in the same vicinity as someone who is a confirmed orsuspected Coronavirus patient.
The app runs by asking the user their name and ID number. Once they areregistered on the app, the app tells them whether they’ve been in closecontact with a suspected or diagnosed Coronavirus patient.
It also allows two other people to check their statuses on the same device.If someone has been in close contact, they are advised to stay at home,contact the local health authorities and get their diagnosis procedurestarted.
The app was developed and deployed by the state-owned China ElectronicsTechnology Group Corporations and the government of China. They have notyet revealed the exact working of the application.
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They define the term ‘close contact’ as people living in the same house,working closely together, studying in the same classrooms, or medicalpersonnel handling the cases of Coronavirus patients. People on the samepublic transport for a given period of time or longer are also consideredto be in close contact.
The Coronavirus has been diagnosed in nearly 24,000 people around the worldand has taken the lives of more than 10,000 of those people.
The Chinese government, with the help of this app and other measures theyhave put up, are doing their best to try and contain this lethal virus andstop it from starting a global epidemic.
