Contact tracing apps may reduce coronavirus outbreak, says study

A team of researchers have shown that digital contact tracing apps may help suppress Covid-19 outbreak.

A model of Covid-19 spread within a simulated population found that if about 20 per cent of the population adopted a contact tracing app on their smartphones, an outbreak could be reduced by about 35 per cent.

If more than 30 per cent of the population adopted the app, the epidemic could be suppressed to manageable levels, said researchers, including Livio Bioglio from the University of Turin.

The team noted that the effectiveness of digital contact tracing would depend on a given population’s level of immunity to the virus; the intervention alone would be unable to suppress a Covid-19 epidemic where transmission — and especially asymptomatic transmission — remains high.