South Africans urged to download Covid-19 contact-tracing app

South Africans have been urged to participate in downloading the Covid Alert SA mobile application, which was launched on Monday in order to strengthen the country’s digital contact tracing efforts.

The department of health director-general Dr Sandile Buthelezi said during a media briefing that the application would be able to help break the transmission of Covid-19 to prevent a resurgence of cases since the easing of restrictions to level 2.

“We are honoured that finally, this dream has come true. It has been a lot of work and I would like to thank Discovery and the rest of the team.

“It is now the time for South Africans to take charge and it’s up to them now to be part of the solution in terms of making sure we can contain infections.”

How does the Covid Alert SA app work?

When an app user anonymously reports to the app that they have the virus, the Covid Alert SA app sends notifications to those devices that were in close contact with this person’s device.

These exposure notifications warn those app users that they could potentially have been exposed to the virus. App users are guided as to what to do next to optimise their wellbeing and prevent the spread of the Covid‑19 virus to others.

At no stage does the app reveal the users’ identities. Confidentiality and anonymity are core to the app’s contact-tracing process.

As of 2 September, South Africa has a total number of 628,259 Covid-19 cases with 1,218 new cases recorded.

The country has also recorded 114 more Covid-19 deaths: 13 from KwaZulu-Natal, 39 from Gauteng, 7 from Eastern Cape, 7 from Free State, 20 from Western Cape, 18 from North West and 10 from Mpumalanga.

This brings the total number of deaths to 14,263.

Read more information here. The app is also available for download at Google Play Store and iStore.