Use an app for contact tracking in the fight against Corona? The Berlin virologist Christian Drosten advocates this approach. Another app from the RKI is now showing its first success.
- Apps can also be an effective tool in the fight against the corona virus.
- Virologist Christian Drosten has now spoken in favor of an app for tracking contacts .
- The RKI already presented another digital aid on Tuesday. And there is a lot of encouragement among the population.
- Here you will find the basic facts about the corona virus * and the corona news from Germany. You can also find current case numbers in Germany here as a map *. The following recommendations for corona protective measures * are currently available.
Berlin - Virologist Christian Drosten calls for the corona pandemic to launch an app to track contacts soon. In the debate about exit strategies from the current corona virus regulations, he considered the idea of the smartphone app to be more convincing than other suggestions: "For me, this is really the preferred tool," said the Charité scientist on Wednesday in the daily NDR podcast .
Coronavirus: Drosten criticizes loss of time in contact tracking of infected people
Such an idea has been under discussion in Germany and other European countries for a few weeks now. It is about quickly informing people when they have had contact with infected people. So far, Drosten criticized that when it comes to researching contact persons through the health authorities , a lot of time is lost . The President of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), Lothar Wieler , had repeatedly described such a solution as a sensible concept .
RKI scientist Dirk Brockmann said in the podcast that about half of the population had to use an app to effectively reconstruct contacts. So far, data protection has been a major hurdle in Germany. The voluntary use is important, emphasized Brockmann: Then it would not be surveillance, but a "participatory experiment".
Corona virus: RKI's “Corona data donation” app already has 160,000 users
The RKI had already published another Corona app on Tuesday, with which citizens can donate health data from fitness trackers and other tracking devices . This is how scientists want to draw conclusions about the spread of the virus. So far, 160,000 people have already registered with the "Corona data donation" app .
It was a very positive surprise , said Brockmann. On the previous day, an employee of the RKI had stated in the press briefing that it would be "great for gaining knowledge" if 10,000 to 100,000 people made their data available via the app. This range has now been exceeded.
Virologist Drosten's daily podcast at NDR deals with various issues related to the corona pandemic. He always gives advice to his listeners. He recently recommended a neckerchief protective mask as a possible alternative for professional breathing masks. In a Twitter post, he explained why, given the current shortage of protective masks, this is not only a possible but also a necessary alternative.
Of course. Masks are scarce, that has been known for a long time. This is exactly why they have to be reserved for professions with patient contact: because that's where they work. Masks for external protection work in public. So: build it yourself or replace it with fabric. https://t.co/xdMak6iG1L
- Christian Drosten (@c_drosten) March 22, 2020* Merkur.de is part of the nationwide Ippen-Digital editors network.