France: StopCovid tracking application flops

Text by: RFI Follow

Three weeks after the launch of the StopCovid application, the Secretary of State for Digital Cédric O made this Tuesday June 23 progress report. Only 2% of the population installed this application on their phone, which allows a user who finds himself contaminated to anonymously warn recently crossed people. 

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Since the launch of StopCovid, only 68 infected people have used the application to prevent their contamination. Admittedly, the epidemic ebbed in France, but the observation is there: the French are sulking the tool for the moment.

We felt a touch of disappointment in Cédric O, the Secretary of State for Digital. The StopCovid application accounts for only two million downloads in France, a quarter of which were followed by an uninstall. Across the Rhine, there are more than 10 million downloads of the German application. 

For Cédric O, the tool is not in question

"  My personal opinion is that it says nothing about the application, it probably says about our cultural differences (with the Germans, note), our sensitivities in the face of the technological debate, our differences in behavior towards -vis the epidemic as for example the drop in the wearing of the mask or the drop in the respect of barrier gestures  ”, estimates Cédric O, for whom the application in itself is therefore not in question. 

Still, for Simon Cauchemez, researcher at the Institut Pasteur, the interest of this kind of applications is certain. “  This follow-up of contacts has first an interest for the whole of society by breaking the transmission chains, and then also an interest for the people concerned so that they can be taken care of more quickly if they have been contaminated through contact and help protect their loved ones,  ”he explains.

Read also: StopCovid, how does it work?

In Guyana, where the epidemic is accelerating , information SMS messages on StopCovid have been sent to the public; the application is therefore experiencing a renewed interest according to Cédric O. "  We have chosen to ask all operators to send an SMS to all those with a mobile phone in Guyana, " detailed the minister. On the first shot which was made with one of the operators on 20,000 text messages sent, we saw several thousand people download the application in the hours that followed  ” 

This may be what will happen in France if the epidemic worsens again.

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