Effectiveness of Ehteraz digital contact tracing app versus conventional contact tracing in managing the outbreak of COVID-19 in the State of Qatar

Abstract

IntroductionContact tracing is an integral component of the overall public health strategy for controlling the outbreak of infectious diseases such as COVID-19. In addition to the conventional contact tracing, Qatar has implemented Ehteraz, a proximity-tracing mobile phone App using global positioning system and Bluetooth technologies. In this paper, we aim to evaluate the accuracy of Ehteraz as a contact tracing App based on the WHO contact tracing criteria and compare its effectiveness to the traditional human led case investigation.MethodsA cross-sectional study was conducted using two databases, including Ehteraz proximity data and swab collection and case investigations reports for the same period.Results46.9% of contacts identified by the Ehteraz app did not meet WHO duration and distance criteria. Among the 5650 contacts flagged by Ehteraz during the period, 4973 (88.0%) of contacts did not share any known relation with the index case they are linked to.ConclusionThe study highlighted the inaccuracy of the Ehteraz tool as its technology enables signals passing through walls, so people in different rooms could be unnecessarily flagged as having had contact. Big segments of the population (eg, Children) do not necessarily use smartphones and are not, therefore, flagged by Ehteraz digital contact tracing App. Similarly, Ehteraz rarely flags close contacts identified by human investigation as Bluetooth is usually turned off in a household or at a workplace. These findings highlight that digital contact tracing would be an efficient public health strategy when integrated to and complementing human investigation.

The Impact of Digital Contact Tracing Apps Overuse on Prevention of COVID-19: A Normative Activation Model Perspective

“…In addition to serious privacy issues, DCTAs have caused many other inconveniences, such as incorrect tracking and problems affecting the normal use of mobile phones [8,21]. Studies have shown that many of the close contacts located by a DCTA did not have any contact with COVID-19 patients, but they were also wrongly traced and isolated [8,22]. The operation of a DCTA has also been shown to affect the users' normal use of their cell phones, such as reducing the phone's running speed and affecting its battery life [21].…”