COVID Alert NY
Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced today the state has created a new tracing app that will notify residents when they have come in contact with someone who has tested positive.
Get alerts today: Download the app on your iPhone here. Download the app on your Android device here.
This is a free smartphone app available to anyone 18+ who lives and/or works in New York. The app uses Bluetooth technology — not location data — to quickly alert users if they have been in close contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19. Once alerted, users can quickly protect themselves and others by self-quarantining, contacting their physician and getting tested.
The app, called COVID Alert NY, is free and is now available on Apple and Android devices.
“(The app) will tell you if you were within six feet of a person who tested positive for 10 minutes,” Cuomo said. “It will tell you if you’re in contact with a COVID-positive person.”
To stop the spread of COVID-19, New York needs each of us to do our part. One way you can help yourself and your community is by participating in our newly launched mobile contract tracing app COVID Alert NY.
COVID Alert NY is a voluntary, anonymous, exposure-notification smartphone app. You will get an alert if you were in close contact with someone who tests positive for COVID-19. Knowing about a potential exposure allows you to self-quarantine immediately, get tested and reduce the potential exposure risk to your family, friends, neighbors, co-workers and others.
It's an innovative new tool: COVID Alert NY — the official Exposure Notification App created by the New York State Department of Health in partnership with Google and Apple. Now you can use your phone to help stop the spread of COVID-19 and you can receive exposure alert notifications without compromising your privacy or personal information.
The more people who download COVID Alert NY, the more effective it will be. Help protect your community while maintaining your privacy. The free mobile apps–available to anyone 18 or older who lives, works, or attends college in New York or New Jersey–are available for download from the Google Play Store or Apple App Store. COVID Alert NY is available in English, Spanish, Chinese, Bengali, Korean, Russian and Haitian Creole.
Download the free app to your smartphone to receive an alert if you have been in close contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19.
New York, along with other states in the Northeast, are taking the tracking of coronavirus cases to a new level.
Help New York Stop the Spread: Download the app and get exposure alerts.
Obviously, tracking COVID-19 cases is a two-way street. The governor said when someone tests positive the Department of Health will send them a password that will register them within the app. Then, other phones that have downloaded the app will be notified when they come within six feet of the infected person’s phone.
Cuomo said the app works off cellphone data, but emphasized to those with privacy concerns that it “doesn’t give names, doesn’t give any privacy information.”
“It’s completely confidential. We don’t collect any data. We don’t track people … It’s completely a voluntary program,” Schwartz said, adding the app is compatible with top six languages spoken in the state.
