DENVER — Around 10% of all Coloradans have signed up for COVID-19 exposure notifications on their phone since the program launched over the weekend, officials said Thursday.
As of Thursday morning, 587,616 people had activated the service on their Android or iPhone, according to Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment officials. Officials have not set a goal for activations, though they pointed to data that showed a 15% participation rate could lead to an 8% reduction in infections and a 6% reduction in deaths.
Officials did not know how many exposure notifications have been sent, as that data is unavailable due to privacy settings of the system.
The service is designed to alert someone if they've been exposed to someone who tested positive for COVID-19.
Officials said the system is private and does not attach a name to someone's account, instead working through non-identifiable Bluetooth tokens.
When two people with the system are near each other, their phones will exchange the tokens. If one person ends up testing positive for COVID-19, they'll enter into the mobile system that they tested positive. The person or persons they were recently near will then receive a notification that they had been exposed to someone who tested positive for COVID-19.
The person who receives the exposure notification won't know who they were exposed to, but they will know when they were exposed.
Go here for more information from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment about the notification system.
