More than half of the roughly million users who are so far using Belgium's contact tracing application share their test results with others if they're positive.
Early usage data of the country's coronavirus app, Coronalert, suggest that some 25,000 users have received test results via the app.
Out of the 3,700 users who have so far received confirmation that they are positive via the app, 2,500, or 70%, notify others in turn, De Standaard reports.
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The Coronalert gives users the option to share their test results with others voluntarily and anonymously, but the figures show that 30% of users are not taking that step.
When a user gets a positive test result notification via the application, a code is forwarded to the central server who checks for high-risk contacts throughout the user database.
Users who are a match to that code and who have been in contact for more than 15 minutes with the user who tested positive get an alarm in the form of a red screen with information regarding the risky contact in question, such as the days elapsed since their encounter.
While the app does not keep records of the number of people who have been alerted of a high-risk contact via the app, due to privacy regulations, developers estimate that between 4,000 or 6,000 people users have so far been warned of a risky contact in this way.
Developers of the app are expecting that the number of people who receive their tests results via the app will increase to somewhere between 60% and 70%.
Gabriela Galindo
The Brussels Times
