At a press conference on Monday, Quebec Premier François Legault was joined by Health Minister Christian Dubé, Quebec Public Health Director Dr. Horacio Arruda, and Éric Caire, Minister of Government Digital Transformation. They announced Quebec's deployment of the Federal exposure tracking notification app, COVID Alert.
Premier Legault declared that Quebecers will now be able to download the COVID-19 Alert App. With this announcement, Quebec will join the ranks of six other Canadian provinces using the COVID tracking app to report a confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis.
The Canadian government assures users that this app maintains privacy and that your information will remain confidential. This federal tracking application will supplement the contact tracing efforts made by backlogged public officials.
Could this new method of contact tracing be the key to slowing the spread? The only way COVID Alert can do its job is if we allow it to do so by downloading the app and inputting a unique code if you tested positive.
“To be efficient, we need as many people as possible to register. In Quebec, we are six million people with a smartphone, so I'm asking, right now, all those who are listening to go register right away,” he said.
“That way, we will create a chain of solidarity, and the greater the number of people registered, the more successful we will be, and the faster we can go back to a normal way of life,” reassured Legault.
The app uses Bluetooth to exchange random codes with nearby phones.
Every day, it checks a list of random codes from people who tell the app they tested positive.
If you've been near one of those codes in the past 14 days, you'll get a notification.
