Smartphone apps track lots of data to provide users with an optimal experience.

Virginia’s official app to slow the spread of COVID-19 has reached an important milestone. More than 1 million people have downloaded the Virginia Department of Health’s COVIDWISE app since it launched in August. Additionally, about a million more people have downloaded Apple’s app for COVID-19 contact tracing. Jeff Stover with the Virginia Department of Health reports that more than 25,000 Virginians were notified they were at risk of testing positive for COVID-19. “It will run through an algorithm to determine if the risk criteria meets certain parameters,” Stover said.

This means users in these 18 areas won’t have to download a separate app in places they are visiting. A user who tests positive for the virus can have their phone trigger a notification to other people they’ve spent time near. The states beyond Virginia are Alabama, California, Colorado, Connecticut, ​Delaware, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wyoming. Adoption is much higher in these places compared with those that require residents to download distinct app, including North Carolina, North Dakota and Virginia. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

RICHMOND, Va. – Usage of a smartphone app intended to notify people if they might have been exposed to the coronavirus is off to a relatively slow start in Virginia. As of Oct. 1, just over 576,000 Virginians had downloaded the state’s COVIDWISE app since its launch eight weeks ago, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch. That’s about 7 percent of the state’s population, or 13 percent of the estimated number of users with a smartphone. Only 238 people have logged positive results within the app, a small fraction of the 50,377 people who have tested positive for COVID-19 in the state since the app launched Aug. 5, the newspaper reported. It relies on Bluetooth wireless technology to detect when someone who downloaded the app has spent time near another app user who later tests positive for the virus.

RICHMOND, Va. – There seems to be an app for everything, and now there’s one for tracking coronavirus cases. Virginia is the first state in the country to use the technology, created by Apple and Google. Norm Oliver, Virginia’s health commissioner. The health department’s interactive map]After downloading the app, users are prompted to opt-in to the notification system. The Virginia Department of Health has posted an FAQ page on its website to help answer them