Tech giant Apple Inc has released an app and a website that will encourage users to do self-screening for COVID-19. The app offers an online screening tool, knowledge about the disease created by coronavirus and direction from the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) on measuring for coronavirus and urgent care.
Apple has developed the app in collaboration with the White House, the CDC and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
The app is accessible on app stores as ‘COVID-19′. The app will ask users questions about symptoms, location and hazard factors and then will give suitable up-to-date guidance from the CDC, said White House officials. The inquiries include knowledge about the user’s recent travel or contact history.
Apple in a press release has made it clear that the screening tool on the app does not substitute instructions from healthcare providers or guidance from state and local health administrators.
There are also data on the best practices for washing your hands, practicing social distancing, quarantining, observing your symptoms, and disinfecting surfaces. The app also offers the capability to store previous screening results to relate to at a later date or with a healthcare provider.
The app is small, coming in at just over 6MB, and operates with any iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch running iOS 13.1 or later, while the website is accessible to all over all platforms and browsers. The company said it would neither collect users’ results not they would be sent to Apple or any administrative body.
“Along with the new COVID-19 app and website customers across the US may also ask Siri, ‘How do I know if I have coronavirus?’ to access guidance and resources from the CDC and a curated collection of telehealth apps available on the App Store,” said the press release.
Currently, the app is only available in the US but the website can be accessed from India.
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