Phone apps promise to identify the recent contacts of people with COVID-19 more quickly and thoroughly. By Kelly Servick“IT IS POSSIBLE TO STOP THE EPIDEMIC.” That’s the message splashed atop a website built by a University of Oxford team this week to share new research on the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Below that hopeful statement comes a big caveat: To stop the virus’ spread, health officials need to find and isolate the contacts of infected people—lots of them—and fast.
Such contact tracing is a mainstay of infectious disease control. But the Oxford team is one of several now advocating for a new approach: tapping into cellphone location data to track the spread of infection and warn people who may have been exposed.Several