(OTTAWA) Canada’s COVID Alert app, which has been closely linked to PCR testing, will be shut down in the coming days, a federal government source confirmed to The Canadian Press.
Posted at 2:50 p.m
The free coronavirus notification app was launched in the summer of 2020, in the early months of the pandemic. It was then presented as a way to warn Canadians if they had been in close contact with someone infected with the virus before any symptoms appeared. The application did not allow collection of personal data from users.
However, this tool requires users to enter a one-time key that they receive when they get a positive PCR test result. However, many provinces have replaced mass screening using PCR tests with home screening using rapid tests, which do not grant the one-time key.
The app was criticized for being inefficient and not performing as expected. Although 6.89 million people had downloaded it as of February 1st, only 57,704 keys were used.
Meanwhile, Canada has had about 3.87 million COVID-19 infections and more than 41,000 people have died since the pandemic began.
The COVID Alert app cost $20 million, the bulk of which – $15.9 million – was spent on advertising and advertising. Ottawa spent $3.5 million developing and maintaining the app.