South Koreans are using smartphone apps to avoid the novel coronavirus
As coronavirus cases surge in South Korea, the country is turning to smartphone apps to avoid the contagion. Recently developed apps using public government data allow users to see how close they are to where a confirmed Covid-19 patient has been. They can also see the date a patient was confirmed with the disease, demographic data about the patient, and, crucially, some of their location history. At least one app, called Corona 100m, will also alert a user if they come within 100 m (328 ft) of a location visited by someone who's had Covid-19. Developers of such offerings have seen a surge in downloads, with their apps ranked among the week's most-downloaded items in the country's Google Play app store. "The installs are increasing about 20,000 every hour," Bae Won-Seok, a creator of Corona 100m, told CNN Business. His app has been downloaded more than 1 million times since it was launched less than three weeks ago. The Korea Centers for Disease Control ...
