STAYAWAY COVID: more than one million people have downloaded the application

Less than three weeks after being rolled out nationwide, more than one million people have downloaded the STAYAWAY COVID i.e., almost 10% of the population already uses the COVID-19 contact tracing app. INESC TEC, in charge of coordinating the team responsible for the development of the application, is committed to increasing this figures, and continues to make significant efforts in this regard.

Rolled out on September 1, in a session attended by the Prime Minister, the Minister of Health and the Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education, the application managed to reach half a million downloads in just a few days. On September 29, there were 1,163.554 downloads on the iOS and Android operating systems.

The coordinator of the INESC TEC team that developed the application – in partnership with the Institute of Public Health of the University of Porto (ISPUP), Keyruptive and Ubirider – is pleased with the results achieved, but also motivated to go further. “This is a vital aid for the Portuguese population, but it would be important to include the remaining five million Portuguese [who own smartphones]”, said Rui Oliveira.

“We know that the more people we have installing the application, the greater its effectiveness will be. At a time when students return to school, and the number of infections increases significantly every day, using the application is one of the most important weapons we have to fight against this virus, in addition to the recommendations by the DGS”, stated the member of INESC TEC’s Board of Directors, and professor at U.Minho.

Similarly to the number of downloads, the amount of interactions on the application has also increased, with “several dozen” doctors already generating codes. According to Rui Oliveira, “the number of cases of infected people reported is the metric that truly matters, since it shows us that there are many people collaborating with us.” In addition, more than eight dozen people have already submitted the code, which “is already quite rewarding, since it proves that the application is playing its role”, concluded Rui Oliveira.

The INESC TEC researcher mentioned in this news piece is associated with U.Minho.