DU recently released a new app called Everbridge Contact Tracer to help during the pandemic by keeping track of new positive COVID-19 test results on campus. The Office of the Chancellor sent an email to the student body on Sept. 3 stating, “With Everbridge, DU will conduct quicker and more effective symptom monitoring and contact tracing to identify and contact community members potentially exposed to someone confirmed positive for COVID-19.”
This app allows students to track their symptoms and alert the DU community if they have been in contact with someone who received a COVID-19 positive test. It is free to download on the App Store or Google Play, and you simply answer four yes or no questions based on symptoms you may be having and people you may have been in contact with. The app is not required to attend DU but highly encouraged in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
But will students use the app as intended? They are more likely to ignore their symptoms than input them into a tracker app at the risk of ending up in quarantine. Take Miami University as an example. Some of their students threw a large house party, ignoring the pandemic protocols. The students attending admitted to the police they had tested for positive for COVID-19 a week prior to the party. By going remote, universities allow students to remain safe and take their classes from home.
The opposite may occur, as well. The purpose of the app is to track the symptoms of those at DU, and this may cause false panic. With flu season approaching, it can be hard to differentiate the symptoms of having COVID-19 from any other virus. Living in a dorm means that if one person gets sick, everyone else follows. When I lived in Centennial Halls as a freshman, I got a stomach virus after every single person in my hall had gotten sick. You enter communal bathrooms during the winter, and you hear the sniffles and stuffy noses of students. To combat this, DU is making flu shots a requirement this year and advising students to self-quarantine regardless of the type of sickness they may catch.
At a glance, this tool does not seem effective. There are multiple directions where things could possibly go wrong. There is no guarantee that students will even download it.
There are better ways for DU to keep students safe and reduce the number of COVID-19 cases on campus. They can make classes remote. Hybrid classes do not work without everyone following pandemic protocols. Students will still find a way to have the “traditional” college experience, as seen at other schools like Providence College in Rhode Island where a party was caught where no one wore face masks. Violating COVID-19 protocols is easier on campuses, as students live closer to each other.
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has already sent their students home. Many other schools are following. A contact tracing app can only do so much. It is only a matter of time before DU falls into the same pattern as other already shut down universities.
