Monday, July 7th, 2025 Church Directory

Possibly Exposed To COVID? Check The App!

Last week, a new piece of technology was introduced to Minnesotans to help slow the spread of COVID-19 in the state.

The app, COVIDaware MN, uses Bluetooth technology to notify Minnesotans if they’ve been exposed to COVID-19. The app is made available by the State of Minnesota with the nonprofit PathCheck Foundation, an organization founded at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that develops COVID-19 apps for digital contact tracing. The app uses COVID-19 exposure notification technology developed by Apple and Google and is now available for download at the Covid Aware website (covidawaremn.com) where you can click on App Store or on Google Play to download.

“We’re in the most challenging time of this pandemic, we’re also in the most hopeful time of the pandemic,” Gov. Tim Walz said.

Once downloaded onto a phone, the app generates an anonymous key for that phone, which is changed every 10 to 20 minutes to protect the data.

Each day, the app will then download a list of keys associated with positive COVID-19 cases and check them against the list of keys the phone has encountered in the past 14 days. If there’s a match, the app will notify the user with instructions from the Minnesota Dept. of Health about what to do, like get tested and quarantine.

Persons who receive a positive COVID-19 test can call MDH at 651-201-5414 and ask for a positive test verification code for the app. Once received, the user can upload the positive result to their app and it will anonymously notify other users within 12 to 24 hours that someone who came into contact with them tested positive for the virus.

“Slowing the spread of COVID-19 is a community effort,” Minnesota Department of Information Technology Commissioner Tarek Tomes said. 

Tomes said that part of the community effort is notifying people when you test positive. While that can often be difficult, the app was created to make that much easier.

“If everything’s done right, you’ll never have to use this hopefully,” Walz said, “but if you do end up getting the virus, this is your chance to be a good citizen.”

Downloading the app is voluntary and anonymous, and the state says the app:

• Never tracks the user’s location;

• Never sends information to MDH without direct permission;

• Never requires personal information;

• Never sends information to Apple or Google;

• Never accesses other information on the user’s phone.

“I want to encourage all Minnesotans, visitors and anyone who spends any time in the state, to download COVIDaware MN,” Tomes said.“Every little bit that we can do to put an end to this virus is so important.”

The state also says users can’t upload a fake positive result, as the test is always verified by a public health authority before a code is sent. The app also doesn’t track users’ locations, as it only knows when it comes within range of another phone that has the app installed.

More than 20 states in the U.S. are using similar apps, according to Walz including Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia, Washington, Wyoming and the District of Columbia.

Other countries around the world to see support include Canada, Brazil, Italy, and Switzerland.

Ehresmann said, in contact tracing, people often have to try to remember where they were and who they were around when they might’ve been infectious, which can be extremely difficult. The app can make it a lot easier and quicker to notify those who were possibly exposed.

One can find more information about the app here at the website: covidawaremn.com.