Lessons Learned in Piloting a Digital Personalized COVID-19 “Radar” on a University Campus

Abstract

Health authorities encouraged the use of digital contact tracing mobile applications (apps) during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the level of adoption was low because apps offered few direct benefits to counterbalance risks to personal privacy. Adoption of such apps could improve if they provided benefits to users. NOVID (COVID-19 Radar), a smartphone app, provided users with personalized data on social proximity of COVID-19 cases and exposed contacts. We analyzed uptake of NOVID at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) during the 2020-2021 academic year. Data included anonymous NOVID users who self-identified with Georgia Tech and their first- and second-degree network contacts. NOVID achieved 13%-30% adoption at Georgia Tech. Because of technical challenges, adoption waned after an initial peak. The largest increases in adoption (from 41 to 3704) followed administrative promotion of NOVID. Adoption increased modestly (from 2512 to 2661) after faculty- and student-led promotion, such as distribution of door hangers and a public seminar. Two-thirds of on-campus NOVID users were connected to a large network of other users, enabling them to receive data on social proximity of COVID-19 cases and exposed contacts. Network cohesion was observed to emerge rapidly when adoption rates passed just 10%, consistent with estimates from network theory. The key lesson learned in this case study is that top-down administrative promotion outperforms bottom-up grassroots promotion. Relatively high levels of adoption and network cohesion, despite technical challenges during the Georgia Tech pilot of NOVID, illustrate the promise of digital contact tracing when apps provide privacy and inherently beneficial personalized data to their users, especially in regions where Google Apple Exposure Notification is not available.

Changes in social contact time following digital SARS-CoV-2 post-exposure notification: A retrospective case-control study at a US university

“…Our study used data from NOVID, an app for Android and iOS developed during the COVID-19 pandemic 28,29 . The app supported multiple different strategies for mitigating disease spread, one of which was exposure noti cation.…”

“…19,30 To address limitations in the accuracy of Bluetooth-based distance measurements between smartphones 23,31 , the app augments Bluetooth-based distance estimates with inaudible, ultrasonic microphone "squeaks." 29 At the time of the analyzed deployment, ultrasonic "squeak" distance measurements were only operational between Android phones. The app maintains user privacy by assigning each user a random identi er at the time of app installation.…”

“…As part of the university's COVID-19 mitigation measures, students and staff were encouraged to use the app's noti cation features in order to facilitate timely testing and self-isolation after a potential exposure 32,33 . Although the app also introduced another different disease mitigation strategy (a personalized "COVID-19 radar" showing how many network "hops" the user was from positive cases in their contact network 29 ), that feature was not emphasized in the university's communications, and so the present study focuses on testing digital exposure noti cation. To our knowledge, there was no other contact tracing app in wide use among this population; the GAEN contact tracing app was not permitted to operate in the state of Georgia at this time.…”

Innovative Approaches to COVID-19 Case Investigation and Contact Tracing

“… 38 An example of innovation on another university campus was a smartphone app that created a personalized “radar” of recent proximity to other app users, including the proportion who later received a positive test result or were contacts of someone who had received a positive test result for SARS-CoV-2. 30 …”

“…29 In one state that chose not to offer exposure notification to the public, a university developed its own on-campus proximity technology smartphone app for the 2020-2021 academic year. 30…”