UCSD Expands Access to Coronavirus Contact Tracing App

Campus officials say the contact tracing app helped keep COVID-19 cases below 50 in the first month of classes.

UCSD Expands Access to Coronavirus Contact Tracing App

A contact tracing app launched by the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) in September has worked so well at keeping coronavirus cases low on campus that health officials at the school are expanding access to it.

The Google-Apple smartphone-based notification app was originally only available to UCSD students, reports NBC San Diego. However, starting Monday, UC San Diego Health patients, anyone who tested at the school or anyone who has been treated by the system in the past year will have full access to the app.

Campus officials say the contact tracing app helped keep COVID-19 cases below 50 at UCSD in the first month of classes.

UCSD students who tested positive for the virus could tell the app to send out anonymous notifications to anyone they came into contact with in the past two weeks who also had the app. Now the app’s full functionality is being made available to a much larger group of people.

Additionally, the app’s notification function is now available to anyone in the state of California. Now, anyone can download the app and receive notifications when they come into contact with someone who tests positive for COVID-19.

The current number of coronavirus deaths in the U.S. is approximately 267,000, reports the New York Times, and the number of cases and hospitalizations is rapidly rising nationally and internationally.

The American College Health Association recommends active testing, contact tracing and other public health measures by universities to keep COVID rates among students as low as possible.

The contact tracing app used by UCSD was also launched at the University of California at San Francisco in the fall.

“The Google Apple Exposure Notification (GAEN) Express tool offers a high-tech, privacy-preserving solution that automates the work of notification for you — without sharing who you are or providing unnecessary digital details that could compromise privacy,” Christopher Longhurst, MD, UC San Diego Health’s chief information officer said when the app launched.

He and other UCSD officials had hoped back in September that the app would “set the foundation for the state to offer voluntary exposure notifications to all Californians using smartphone-based technology.”

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About the Author

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Robin has been covering the security and campus law enforcement industries since 1998 and is a specialist in school, university and hospital security, public safety and emergency management, as well as emerging technologies and systems integration. She joined CS in 2005 and has authored award-winning editorial on campus law enforcement and security funding, officer recruitment and retention, access control, IP video, network integration, event management, crime trends, the Clery Act, Title IX compliance, sexual assault, dating abuse, emergency communications, incident management software and more. Robin has been featured on national and local media outlets and was formerly associate editor for the trade publication Security Sales & Integration. She obtained her undergraduate degree in history from California State University, Long Beach.

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