Since the beginning of the COVID-19 Pandemic, there have been all sorts of unknowns and changes going on.

However, now that more public places have been opening (with restrictions), more precautions have had to be thought of so that people are able to begin living more “normally.”

With that being said, contact tracing has been a major part of this! Contact tracing involves the process of identifying those people who have been in contact with somebody who has been infected.

In this day in age, society is fortunate enough to have technology to allow for easier contract tracing. Many public places such as restaurants and stores will ask for their shoppers or diners to provide their emails or phone number so that if they happen to have an employee test positive or even another customer, then they are able to contact others who may have been in their establishment during that same time.

Along with this type of technology being used for contact tracing, software developers have also been creating different apps for smart devices that can be used for tracing. Many of these apps will take the users location and Bluetooth on their device.

Google and Apple have been in the works of rolling out these apps for their users and from what is known, the apps would essentially locate other devices that are using the same downloaded software.

If in some case you have tested positive, your phone would then be able to send out a notification to any person (who had their software downloaded) who was in close proximity to you and let them know that you have tested positive. These notifications would go out to anybody in contact for more than five minutes, in the hope that it will help to stop the spread of COVID-19.

While the apps may not be quite ready for download yet, the hope is that they will be released soon!