HE the Spokesperson of the Supreme Committee for Crisis Management Lolwah bint Rashid bin Mohamed AlKhater has announced that a new smartphone app, to be launched soon, will help enhance preventive measures and limit the spread of Covid-19 in Qatar.
Named Ehteraz, which means precaution, the app is the result of joint efforts of the State's agencies headed by the Ministry of Transport and Communications (MoTC) and Ministry of Public Health (MoPH), the official Qatar News Agency (QNA) reported.
Addressing a press conference on Thursday, she urged everyone to use the application to help contain the spread of Covid-19.
HE AlKhater tweeted that the app, which is Android and iOS compatible, has been developed following weeks of collaborative work between the MoTC and MoPH. The app uses a GPS feature and Bluetooth to perform various services.
“Helps you and medical teams better identify Covid-19 transmission chains and accelerates medical help,” she added.
Besides helping enhance preventive measures and curb the spread of the virus, the app will also display the latest developments and official statistics related to Covid-19, according to an infographic tweeted by HE AlKhater.
The app will also receive awareness and precautionary instructions issued by the official authorities.
Explaining how the app works, another infographic says the profile of each user is linked to QR Code by automatically extracting the user’s health information from official entities. This will be done based on the following categorisation:
* Red – for people who have tested positive for Covid-19
* Yellow – for individuals who have been placed in quarantine facilities
* Grey – suspected cases, individuals who exhibit symptoms, or who have been in contact with Covid-19-positive cases but have not been tested
* Green – healthy individuals who do not exhibit any symptoms, or who have tested negative
For enquiries, one can call the Government Contact Centre at 109.
HE AlKhater said all this information is connected to a database and if a case of coronavirus infection is discovered, the application enables the competent authorities to track the areas where this person was present in - from the time of downloading the app until the moment of infection. In the process, the authorities can also ascertain all the people, or a large percentage of people who have had contact with the infected, as long as the application is used. After identifying these people, they will receive messages through the app that they may have had contact with an infected person and will have priority in testing, she explained.
Further, she stressed the importance of downloading and activating the application for the benefit of everyone, noting that in the event a person recovers from the virus, the application returns to Grey and a particular period is specified for checking again to make sure of the full recovery. The colour of the application will then turn Green.
It was also underscored that the application maintains the privacy of everyone and only the health authorities can see the details of each person, QNA added.
HE AlKhater pointed out that the application also helps in quarantine by alerting individuals if they are approaching a distance less than what is considered safe. She stressed that if the application is used properly, it will pay off for the society as a whole through curbing the spread of the virus as much as possible.
