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Half year corona app: effective, only 4.7 million downloads

The CoronaMelder app has been in use on Saturday for exactly six months and has since warned thousands of people that they have been in the vicinity of someone with corona, while they were often not in the picture at a GGD. In that sense, the application is therefore effective, researchers from Erasmus University previously stated. But not everyone has the application installed on his or her smartphone.




CoronaMelder monitors whether users have been close to other people, without revealing their identity. If they are subsequently tested positive, they can warn other users of the app if they have been around for more than 15 minutes.

Millions of Dutch people downloaded the app when it was officially put into use after a test period on 10 October. But after the initial period, the number of users increased only marginally. According to the latest state of Thursday, 4.7 million people are now using the app. That amounts to 27 percent of the population, against 26 percent a month earlier. So still about three quarters of the Dutch have not installed the application. This can be seen in all age groups, Tilburg University reported earlier.

Nevertheless, the app is effective, researchers from Erasmus University concluded at the end of last month. Almost six in ten people who heard through the app that they had been in the vicinity of someone with corona had not been approached by the GGD for source and contact research. About 144,000 people have received such a report so far. In the past month, this involved about 500 to 800 reports per day. People who undergo testing after such a report also appear to be significantly more likely to be infected than the rest of the population.

However, after receiving a warning signal, people often do not heed the request to get tested, the researchers note. Half make an appointment on the same day, but the rest do not. The call to stay at home after a notification from the app is also often not followed up.

By: ANP | Photo: ANP

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