What is Aarogya Setu ?
Aarogya setu is a government-owned application that is being posed as the primary contact tracing tool in India. During the Lockdown Prime Minister Narendra Modi requested to the citizen of India to download and use the Aarogya setu application to combat corona-virus. Many food-delivery services have mandated the use of the Aarogya setu app for their delivery personnel.
The application is available on Google Play Store and has already registered over 50 million downloads. This application acts as a one-stop solution for spreading awareness about Covid-19, however, the biggest function is to trace contracts and create a reliable network for the government to identify potential Covid-19 victims.
Once the user sets-up their profile on the application, the app asks for continuous Bluetooth access and even location data. Then the application asks some basic information that will help build data about the users. The information includes age, gender, name, health status and also asks for the countries that the user has been to in the past few weeks. The application also asks if the user belongs to any one of the exempted categories of professionals. Then it asks if the user will be willing to help in times of need.
In the net step, a self-assessment test is put forward where the user is asked about their current health and whether they are showing any of the symptoms of Covid-19. The user will also have to declare their travel history. In case you are a doctor, the application will ask if you were exposed to Covid-19 patients. Depending on the answers, the application will suggest a way forward.
Why Contact-Tracing?
The Long lockdown has slowed the spread of Covid-19. Covid-19 will be biding its time in markets, offices, schools, public transport, and everywhere else where people come close together. There’s a time-tested way to do this: contact-tracing. You find out the person who is infected when the person comes in contact with.India has its contact-tracing app, Aarogya-Setu.
Why use an app?
The lockdown is a full-scale war. The entire housing societies and neighborhoods sealed because one or two residents tested positive for the corona-virus. We have recorded about 20,000 cases but 1.3 billion Indians have been in lockdown for a month.
This is where contact-tracing comes in. It’s like a surgical strike. You identify the infected, trace the people they have had contact with, and isolated only those few individuals.