Alberta’s COVID-19 tracing app ‘ABTraceTogether’ has been used to trace only 20 cases since its launch six months ago.
The provincial government has revealed that it has been downloaded more than 260,000 times. The Alberta government has also slightly backtracked earlier claims that it had resolved problems with the iOS version of the app with a recent update.
It has acknowledged that issues may persist when the app is running in the background on iPhones. The CBC notes experts have said that the issue can only be resolved if Apple changes the way that its operating system grants permission to third-party applications.
Apple’s restrictions are in place as a battery-saving and security measure, and it would be very unlikely for it to make any changes.
This comes as Alberta Premier Jason Kenney has rejected COVID Alert. The federal COVID Alert exposure notification app has been downloaded around 5.2 million times and sent out 4,200 exposure alerts.
Kenney has stated that Alberta no longer plans to sign onto the COVID Alert app because ABTraceToegther is more useful in stopping the spread of the virus.
“This has nothing to do with one being federal or one being provincial. ABTraceTogether is, in our view, simply a better and more effective public-health tool,” Kenney told reporters on November 6th.
Other than Alberta, British Columbia is the only other province that hasn’t signed onto the app. The B.C. provincial government has stated that COVID Alert is very “non-specific” and that it won’t adopt the app until some changes are made.
Source: CBC News
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