With the help of Asian tech giants, the Chinese government hopes to be able to halt the spread of coronavirus. The administration of Xi Jinping called upon Alibaba as well as Tencent to develop a new QR code system with different colors in order to monitor the health status of residents precisely across the country.
A color QR code according to the Chinese health status
This Wednesday, February 19, Alipay, the payment application developed by Alibaba, launched a new feature in collaboration with the Chinese government, which allows to allocate a QR code to the inhabitants of Hangzhou. Depending on the color assigned to them, one can know their state of health at a glance and know if they are at risk of having been infected by the coronavirus.
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City residents must fill out an online form with their “identification number” if they have traveled outside of Hangzhou recently, and the potential symptoms they are experiencingsuch as fever or a strong cough. Once this online step is complete, the Chinese receive a QR code with a color on their smartphone, a kind of barcode, indicating their state of health.
The color code is very clear: users who are assigned a red code are required to stay at home, in quarantine for at least 14 days. The Chinese who received a yellow code are required to stay confined to their home for 7 days, while people with a green code can move as they please. It is clear that the Chinese government is doing everything to put technology at the service of the fight against the coronavirus.
Do everything to limit the spread of Coronavirus
A few days ago, we learned that China was also launching an application to let people know if they have been in contact with patients or not. Called “Close Contact Detector”, this application developed by the Directorate General of the State Council, the National Health Commission and China Electronics Technology Group Corporations was launched on February 8, 2020. The people of China can now check if they have been in contact with or near a person infected with the coronavirus. The toll of the epidemic is now 1,770 dead.
The color QR code implemented in Hangzhou should be extended to the rest of the country in the coming days. In this regard, two residents of Hangzhou told Reuters neighbors asked to see their QR code. Also, another resident of the city said that she was asked to show her QR code before entering a local supermarket … The measures are strict and the government will not let anything pass. To stop the spread of the coronavirus, China is ready for anything.
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