Frankfurt's Health Commissioner Majer informs
It's been announced for a long time, now it's finally here: since Tuesday, June 16, the federal government's Corona warning app can be downloaded. In the first 24 hours, there were about 6.5 million downloads of this voluntary and free tracing app, which is intended to be another building block in the pandemic response. The Corona warning app is intended to help break chains of infection at an early stage. The time between a person testing positive and informing their contacts can be reduced with the app. This also reduces the time in which, for example, asymptomatic people could infect others. The app can also be used to identify additional risk encounters in everyday situations that have previously fallen through the cracks, for example during longer stays on public transport or when shopping. It is thus intended to be an important complement to contact tracing by public health departments.
The Corona Warning app notifies users when they have been in the vicinity of a Corona-positive person for a certain period of time - provided that person shares the data collected in the form of random codes with other app users. The app assesses the risk of infection and provides behavioral recommendations.
Frankfurt's head of health Stefan Majer sees many advantages in the app in the fight against the Corona virus: "I have the hope that the app will give many people reason to be even more conscious of keeping their distance and hygiene rules, and I'm very excited to see what results it will achieve." At the same time, Majer also makes it clear: "It must be clear that the app cannot replace the rules. The moment there is a risk assessment through the app, the real work of our health department begins. We expect that there will be a large number of questions to and a high demand for advice from the health offices as a result of the new app. We have made sure in Frankfurt that we can react flexibly and guarantee successful contact follow-up and good advice at all times."
Majer recommends that citizens use their own discretion to decide whether or not to use the app. However, this only applies to those who can. Because on slightly older smartphones, the app can not be loaded. Here, an improvement would be desirable, because you can not require anyone to buy a new smartphone, only to be able to load an app on it. And there are certainly many people who would load the Corona warning app on their iPhone 6, for example. Silly.
Majer continues to appeal to everyone to keep the distance requirement of at least five feet, practice thorough hand hygiene and wear a mouth/nose guard wherever the distance cannot be maintained. An appeal that cannot be repeated often enough - even if some people believe that the virus has been defeated due to the (fortunately) low number of cases. Sadly, that's not the case. But app, mouth-nose protection and keeping your distance can help prevent the virus from spreading again on a larger scale.
General questions about the app are answered on the City of Frankfurt's Corona page at http://www.frankfurt.de/coronavirus-questions-and-answers and on the federal government's information page at https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-en/topics/corona-warn-app/corona-warn-app-faq-1758392 answered.
