COVID Alert App Cost Canada $20 Million, Used Only 869 Times in November

Everyone knows !

[–]Not_kilg0reTrout 354 points355 points356 points 4 days ago (46 children)

[–]twowheels 0 points1 point2 points 3 days ago (2 children)

[–]7eggert 1 point2 points3 points 4 days ago (0 children)

"It's working there? We need to do it differently! Don't warn us to not do it that way, just because you're experts doesn't mean that you know anything! Oh, it doesn't work! But we already made a contract with the company to guarantee revenue! OK, let's do it again …"

-- every gouvernment probably.

On the third try we (Germany) got the app right. Fortunately we got data protection laws and the CCC experts had a good lobby so we only lost several months discussing the wrong solution. But we spent millions on a second app ("Luca") for non-anonymous contact tracing before anonymous contact tracing was implemented in the other app ("CWA"). We got 2619 warnings yesterday by that app, on average 5456, total 979614. These are outgoing warnings, nobody can know the amount of users being warned.

[–]autotldrBOT 10 points11 points12 points 4 days ago (0 children)

This is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 75%. (I'm a bot)

Canada is seeing a countrywide spike in COVID-19 cases fuelled by the Omicron variant, and questions are being raised as to where the national contract-tracing app that cost $20 million in taxpayer money to develop, COVID Alert, is - reports CityNews.

Alex Beattie, a spokesperson for Health Canada, told CityNews in a statement that the COVID Alert app, which has been downloaded 6.7 million times to date, was only running on around 3.1 million phones across Canada in November.

In November, the COVID Alert app was only used by 869 individuals to inform anyone they come into contact with of possible exposure to the virus.

Extended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: app^#1 COVID^#2 Alert^#3 Canada^#4 COVID-19^#5

[–]JollyTaxpayer 318 points319 points320 points 4 days ago (40 children)

[–]Johnstone3729 21 points22 points23 points 4 days ago* (4 children)

No.

Apply for a Test and Trace Support Payment

If you’re usually working and do not get benefits

You can apply for the payment if you meet all of the following conditions:

you’ve tested positive for COVID-19 or been told you’re a close contact by NHS Test and Trace or the NHS COVID-19 app

you’re not exempt from self-isolating

you’ll lose income because you cannot work from home

You can be either employed or self-employed.

Your council website will tell you what counts as low income, and whether you’re eligible.

Using my old council as an example

Test and Trace Support Payment

You are entitled to a lump sum payment of £500 if you:

Have been told to self-isolate by NHS Test and Trace on or after 28 September 2020

Are employed or self-employed

Are unable to work from home and will lose income as a result

Are currently receiving at least one of the following benefits: Universal Credit, Working Tax Credit, income-based Employment and Support Allowance, income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance, Income Support, Housing Benefit and/or Pension Credit.

Discretionary payments

If you are not in receipt of one of the benefits above but meet all the other criteria, you may be eligible for a discretionary payment of £500 if you face financial hardship as a result of not being able to work whilst self-isolating.

Looking at other councils, such as Guildford Borough, they've set low income as <20k.

The figures you're providing, and how black and white you're making it out to be are incorrect.

Edit:

It's great to see someone linking back to their sources though, and nice formatting.

[–]JollyTaxpayer 14 points15 points16 points 4 days ago (2 children)

[–]Johnstone3729 11 points12 points13 points 4 days ago (1 child)

[–]Phage0070 4 points5 points6 points 4 days ago (0 children)

[–]c00yt825 16 points17 points18 points 4 days ago (0 children)

[–]murius 1 point2 points3 points 4 days ago (0 children)

[+]Ares1935 comment score below threshold-12 points-11 points-10 points 4 days ago* (5 children)

[–]reddwombat 62 points63 points64 points 4 days ago (26 children)

[–]Serafiniert 6 points7 points8 points 4 days ago* (4 children)

I think you should look into the documentation of those apps to understand why it isn't just "dead simple". Of course you can often times describe an app's functionality in a few words. But that doesn't mean that the app isn't hard and / or time-consuming to build.

P.e. look at this app: https://github.com/corona-warn-app/cwa-documentation

It's all open source. So you can easily dive into it trying to comprehend why it's so expensive build.

Here's one part of the documentation about how systems of it work.

https://github.com/corona-warn-app/cwa-documentation/blob/master/solution_architecture.md

Software development is expensive. Especially in the health sector, when lives are endangered when the software fails. A lot of the cost producing such an app is allocated to its planning, documentation and testing.

Also privacy is a huge concern. How do you design a system that can monitor proximity interactions with other human beings that were infected and alarm you without storing or processing any data related to you as a person or geo data?

The way to talk about those apps makes me assume that you've never looked into any of it.

[–]ThingsThatMakeMeMad 6 points7 points8 points 4 days ago* (6 children)

[–]JshKlsn 0 points1 point2 points 4 days ago (0 children)

[–]Susannah_Mio_ 0 points1 point2 points 4 days ago (1 child)

We have a Covid App in Germany as well which was pretty costly and which only very few people actually use. Some reasons I personally have heard for not using it:

- "I don't want the government to be able to trace my location."

- "It's always showing warning notifications about contacts. It's annoying."

- "I once got a warning but I didn't have Covid back then so it doesn't work anyway."

- "When it gives me a warning I am supposed to do a test and I don't want that, I hate this thing up in my nose."

- "I think it really is a spy app which the goverment uses to infiltrate our phones and collect every info including bank account passwords etc."

- "I feel safer not knowing how many infected people I meet."

The problem with all these apps is that people would actually need to behave responsible out of their own free will about this whole Covid thing for them to work. But that is not the case. Plus lots of people for some reason so wildly distrust the goverment they won't use these apps if their life depended on it.