PORTLAND, Ore. — Oregon and Washington are in the midst of developing new tools to assist in Covid-19 tracking.
KGW viewer Mary Wigham asked, "We heard about the Covid tracking/notification app being developed with Google for Oregon and Washington back in the first week of October. What is the status of that app, has it been released?”
KGW set out to Verify: What is the status of a Covid-19 contact tracing app in Oregon and Washington?
Back in early October KGW reported that Oregon was working with Google and Apple to develop a contact-tracing notification system for Covid-19 cases.
We spoke to Timothy Menza who works for the Oregon Health Authority.
“Oregon and Washington have just begun pilot projects of the exposure notification system on the OSU and UW campuses, respectively. Washington plans a release statewide at the end of November, while Oregon will likely implement statewide mid-to-late December," Menza said.
If implemented statewide, this contact tracing technology would allow Oregon and Washington residents to use their cell phones to find out if they have been exposed to the coronavirus. Pilot projects are still underway, so the notification system has not been implemented statewide.
KGW can Verify: The Covid-19 contact tracing technology has not been released to the Oregon and Washington public as of yet. Authorities are still in the process of testing out the systems on sample groups, but hope to have the technology released to the public in both states by late 2020.
Do you have something you want us to Verify? Let us know. Email us at verify@kgw.com
