ALBANY – Governor Andrew Cuomo announced the launch of COVID-19 exposure notification mobile app that will serve as a tool to supplement the effort to trace and contact individuals subject to a COVID exposure.
The app, COVID Alert NY, notify users of potential COVID-19 exposure while maintaining user privacy and security.
With this launch, New York joins New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware in creating a regional COVID Alert app network that operates across state lines to stop the spread of COVID-19. Connecticut has also announced it will launch the Exposure Notification System in the coming weeks.
The free mobile app – available to anyone 18 or older who lives, works, or attends college in New York – is available for download from the Google Play Store or Apple App Store. COVID Alert NY is available in English, Spanish, Chinese, Bengali, Korean, Russian and Haitian Creole.
This is a technology-based contact tracing app. Testing is only as good as your contact tracing,” Cuomo said. “Testing is to identify a person, so you can isolate and quarantine that person and then find the connections from that person, and that’s contact tracing. We have about 15,000 people statewide who do contact tracing, they call them disease detectives.”
The apps use Exposure Notification System technology developed by Google and Apple to strengthen New York and New Jersey’s contact tracing programs statewide. The COVID Alert apps will notify users if they have been in close contact – within six feet for at least 10 minutes – with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19. Knowing about a potential exposure can help individuals quickly make a plan to stay safe, including contacting their physician or the State Health Department hotlines to get more information about quarantining and testing to prevent community spread.
