While governments around the world have launched nationwide Covid-19 contact-tracing smartphone apps over the last months, the United States has pointedly not. Instead, it seems like the apps designed to detect coronavirus exposure stateside will launch on a state-by-state basis—and they may be anything but united.
When Google and Apple officially launched their exposure notification API for Android and iOS last week, their announcement included statements from three states—North Dakota, Alabama, and South Carolina—that are already building apps that will integrate the company's Bluetooth-based system.
But it increasingly seems that neither the Center for Disease Control, nor the Department of Health and Human Services, nor any other US federal agency will release a nationwide Covid-19 contact-tracing app. "There is no effort I know of at the national level to build anything" like a contact-tracing app, says someone familiar with the White House Covid-19 task force deliberations led by President Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, speaking to WIRED under the condition of anonymity. "Just like you’ve seen with the plan on testing and reopening, it’s being pushed to the states."
Another advisor to that task force, Andy Slavitt, who led medicare and medicaid policy in the Obama administration and reportedly offered recommendations to Kushner, tells WIRED that any contact-tracing smartphone apps are almost certain to be left to the states alone. "I don't think the federal government wants the responsibility to figure out the best and most efficient ..
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