MD Launches COVID Alert For Phone Notifications Of Exposure

MARYLAND — Have you wondered whether you were recently around someone who had the coronavirus? Those who want to get notified about potential exposures can now be alerted in Maryland using their phones.

iPhone and Android users can opt in to the service, which is free and can be disabled anytime. On iPhones, go to "Settings" and "Exposure Notifications" to use the service. For Android, find the MD COVID Alert app on Google Play.

MD COVID Alert assigns each user a random ID, which changes every two minutes to ensure they cannot be used to identify people or their whereabouts, according to the Maryland Department of Health.

“Privacy is important. MD COVID Alert does not collect, transmit, or store personal information of users, and the system is completely anonymous,” said Dr. Katherine Feldman, who is the director of contact tracing for the Maryland Department of Health.

“We’re asking Marylanders to add their smartphones to the fight against COVID-19 by using MD COVID Alert," Feldman said.

The service uses Bluetooth Low Energy to detect where a person has been, so Bluetooth must be enabled.

People must self-report their positive test results, and they will be given a code to use to report it from contact tracers.

Several times a day, officials say the app processes the random ID numbers to determine whether anyone who has tested positive for coronavirus has been within 6 feet of another person for a cumulative total of 15 minutes or more over a 24-hour period starting from two days before the symptoms began for an infected person or two days before the positive test result specimen was collected from an asymptomatic person.

If someone meets these criteria, then the user will get an exposure notification.

“MD COVID Alert complements our traditional contact tracing efforts to notify users of possible exposure to help contain the virus,” Maryland Health Secretary Robert R. Neall said. “I encourage Marylanders to use MD COVID Alert to help protect the people around them, including those they might not know directly.”