Apple and Google are stepping up to build a system to help track cases of COVID-19 — but they're being failed by the US government's inadequate testing efforts.
On Friday, the two California tech giants announced a highly unusual partnership. They are working together to build developer tools, or APIs, to enable app developers to create "contact-tracing" apps that can track people who people diagnosed with the novel coronavirus have been in contact with, and alert them to their possible exposure.
The effort is admirable, and may significantly help track the spread of the pandemic and help prevent new infections — but it has weaknesses, none more so than its reliance on federal testing.
In theory, a robust contact-tracing system is an ideal way to contain a viral outbreak. Individuals' locations are tracked, and if someone displays symptoms or tests positive for the disease in question, they and people who they've potentially exposed are placed in quarantine. Thus, the broader population is protected without the need for economically onerous shutdowns like the ones currently in place around the globe. There are severe privacy considerations, but from a public health perspective, it should work — but only if people are actually tested — and that's where the US is failing.
The United States is testing for coronavirus at a frustratingly slow rate. Other countries including Germany and South Korea are conducting far more tests per capita than the US, and governors like Washington state's Jay Inslee have said they have a "desperate need" for more tests and related materials.
And states are also testing at unequal rates, with Vox reporting that "Washington state has done about four times as many tests per capita as Texas and Georgia ... Yet Washington and Texas have about the same number of positive test results, despite the latter testing far fewer people per capita. Such a high positive test rate suggests the real number of cases is much larger than the official count."
Until testing is far, far more widespread, and everyone who wants a test really can get one, Apple and Google's work will be of limited utility. It doesn't matter if both you and the infected person you came into contact with both have one of the apps installed; if they can't get a test, they may never know that they're contagious, and neither will you.
Even if this issue is solved, Apple and Google's system won't be infallible. It relies on bluetooth to detect proximity, which might give some false positives — if you're in a car near a positive-testing person, or nearby in a building but protected by a wall or floor.
And without government mandates, it relies on people actually proactively choosing to install an app. In Singapore, which has relied heavily on contact-tracing, only around 12% of people have installed the contact-tracing app built by its government, The Verge's Casey Newton reported.
Even so, Apple and Google's project has the potential to make a positive impact on the spread of COVID-19, but only if the testing ramps up significantly.
As it stands, tech companies are standing up to help — only to be failed by the US government.
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