Sadly, no. It's been left to the states, and almost none of the states are planning on using apps[0].
This boggles my mind. Sure, it will take a reasonable effort to get widespread use of these apps. But the impact would be huge. Even low rates of app use have a real chance of lowering the reproduction rate significantly, and reasonably broad usage bring it less than 1.0.
The technology is designed in the right way, where anonymous data is being collected with no app required. People can download the app right after they get a positive test and report themselves positive retroactively. Same on the other side, you can download the app and know how much contact you've had with positive cases retroactively.
I'm no longer surprised the US federal government is doing nothing to push this. But I expected more out of the states.
This boggles my mind. Sure, it will take a reasonable effort to get widespread use of these apps. But the impact would be huge. Even low rates of app use have a real chance of lowering the reproduction rate significantly, and reasonably broad usage bring it less than 1.0.
The technology is designed in the right way, where anonymous data is being collected with no app required. People can download the app right after they get a positive test and report themselves positive retroactively. Same on the other side, you can download the app and know how much contact you've had with positive cases retroactively.
I'm no longer surprised the US federal government is doing nothing to push this. But I expected more out of the states.
[0] https://9to5mac.com/2020/07/13/covid-19-exposure-notificatio...