Latvia plans to become one of the first countries to develop a smartphone app, utilizing a digital toolkit developed by U.S. software companies Apple and Google Alphabet to help trace coronavirus infections.
The recent performance of tracing apps in countries such as Singapore and Australia has been patchy as Apple’s iPhone does not support their approach to use short-range Bluetooth radio as a proxy for measuring the risk of infection.
By contrast, Latvia’s Apturi COVID (Stop COVID) app is based on technology launched last week by Apple and Google, whose iOS and Android operating systems account for 99 percent of smartphones worldwide.
The app’s developers said in a statement:
The developers believe that reliance on this standard will ensure widespread adoption and also compatibility over time with contact tracing apps around the world that are also expected to adopt the same exposure notification framework,
The software will reportedly only function inside Latvia, with a population of nearly 2 million people.
The Panthera Post 