Mt. Sinai Health launches coronavirus app to track outbreak across the New York City

By Noah Higgins-Dunn

A team of data scientists, physicians and engineers at New York City’s Mount Sinai Health System has created an app that aims to track the spread of COVID-19 in the city, considered the epicenter of the nation’s outbreak. 

The hospital’s patients and city residents will be able to monitor their symptoms through a web-based app, called STOP COVID NYC, Mount Sinai said in a press release. To sign up, the hospital is encouraging residents to text “COVID” to 64722. Users will need to complete an initial survey with questions about demographics, exposure and symptom history, followed by short daily surveys about their symptoms through text messages sent to their phones.

The data could alert health care providers about growing clusters of cases in the specific communities in the city, which would help them better allocate resources throughout the five boroughs, the hospital said. The coronavirus has infected more than 76,000 people in New York, far more than any other state in the U.S. 

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In February, China launched an app that tracks people and alerts them if they have been in “close contact with someone infected” with the new coronavirus. In Singapore, the government rolled out an app called TraceTogether that uses Bluetooth signals between cellphones to see if potential carriers of the coronavirus have been in close contact with other people.