Germany is preparing to take an important step. To stem the coronavirus pandemic, the German government must present in the coming days a device making it possible to identify the people having been in contact with an infected person thanks to their telephone and the bluetooth.

With a policy of large-scale testing and a number of deaths officially linked to Covid-19 contained at this stage of less than 900, Germany seems for the moment to cope better with the pandemic than many of its European neighbors.

To date, it has been able to escape the strict and widespread confinement put in place in France, Italy or Spain.

The government is now preparing for the next phase, with a possible relaxation from the end of April of the measures of social distancing and closings of public places.

But, warns the Minister of Health, Jens Spahn, "for this to be possible, we must be able to identify and reach very quickly all the people in contact with an infected person".

Tool inspired by Singapore

The government had to back down from the outcry in mid-March over its initial idea of ​​using the data. The mobile operators should have provided the data of some 46 million German subscribers to identify the contacts of the sick. An intolerable measure in a country marked by surveillance and widespread filing led by the Nazi regime and then, in East Germany, by the Stasi.

The government has therefore reviewed its copy and should propose a new device "in the coming days", according to Jens Spahn, which would work on a voluntary basis.

It is an application that would store for a fortnight, without geolocation and guaranteeing data protection, interactions via bluetooth, which transforms the phone into a transmitter and receiver of signals.

Thus, if a person is infected, the application will send a "push" to all those they have encountered in the previous two weeks, to warn them of a risk of contamination. Only those who have downloaded the application will receive the warning that they may have been infected by a patient whose anonymity will be preserved.

This device is inspired in particular by a digital tool used in Singapore, where the Covid-19 epidemic was contained despite the population density in this city-state.

It is developed by the German Fraunhofer Heinrich-Hertz Institute (HHI) for telecommunications, which is working on this project with the Robert-Koch Institute, responsible for epidemiological monitoring.

A first test was to be conducted on Wednesday April 1 in a Berlin military barracks.

With AFP

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