Attempt to improve COVID Alert app stalls for lack of interest by provinces

New data provided to Global News shows usage of the COVID Alert app declined in 2021 even as Health Canada tried to improve its functionality and increase its uptake.

In the early days of the pandemic, before anyone had their first vaccine, the federal government’s COVID Alert app was promoted as an important tool the country could use to help fight the spread of the virus.

“This is literally a tool in your pocket to fight this virus,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in November 2020.

“Download the COVID Alert app. It’s easy. It’s free. It will help you do your part to protect your friends and loved ones,” he said in October 2020.

But the app never seemed to find its footing as part of the anti-COVID-19 arsenal Canadians were prepared to adopt. Though more than 6.7 million of the 30 million smartphones in Canada have the app installed, new data obtained by Global News show that its use has declined significantly through 2021.

Global News has also learned that attempts by the federal government to build in some new functionality were abandoned largely because the needed provincial partners shrugged their shoulders in disinterest at the idea of employing any resources to improve the app.

The premise of the app was a relatively simple one. When people are near each other, their phones would exchange and record anonymous numeric codes so that if a person using the app ever became sick with COVID-19, an alert could be sent to every phone that had recorded being near that phone and the phone’s owner could take appropriate health precautions.

To be able to send an alert, an infected user must obtain a one-time special code from a provincial health authority.

But British Columbia, Alberta, Yukon and Nunavut never signed on, often citing technical difficulties.