CoronaMelder, the app that was supposed to prevent the spread of the corona virus, has had a “limited epidemiological effect”. This is the conclusion of researchers from the universities of Utrecht, Amsterdam and Rotterdam, among others research which was published last week. It is estimated that only about 2 percent of all corona tests were administered because someone received a notification from the app. A relatively small proportion of those tests were positive.
People were much more likely to get tested because they had symptoms, for example, or because of an infected roommate. It plays a role in this that less than a third of the Dutch had installed the app nine months after its launch. Campaigns to promote the app were “sub-optimal” according to the researchers.
It is striking that the manual source and contact investigation by the GGDs also contributed little, according to the researchers. Health authorities have spent a lot of money and effort trying to call back infections, but have been unable to keep up with resurgences of the virus. The source and contact investigation led to about 2 to 5 percent of the corona tests, the scientists think, who recommend a “more concentrated approach”.
The researchers rely on data from the Amsterdam Municipal Health Service and questionnaires that were administered at test streets, because privacy measures prevented them from using data from the app itself.
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