No more waiting

"Your wait is over."

We noted in an earlier post that a smartphone app was supposed to be rolled out by UCLA and other campuses on Monday for coronavirus contract tracing. It didn't happen on Monday, but it did yesterday via an email.

Yours truly initially followed the steps indicated in the email on his iPhone and got back a message saying the program wasn't available in his area. Some back and forth with the IT people eventually resolved the problem. In my case, although the phone was supposed to update automatically to the latest operating system - and seemed to do so - it hadn't. When the system was updated manually, the app "worked." (I say "worked" because you won't know if it's working as promised unless you become involved in a tracing incident.)

Below is the email received yesterday:

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Dear Bruin Community:

Working to minimize incidents of COVID-19 on our campus and in our communities has been of utmost importance since this pandemic began. We have been doing our part by practicing new behaviors and following protocols designed to keep ourselves and others safe and healthy.

Beginning Nov. 16, UCLA will join UC Berkeley, Berkeley Lab, UC Davis, UC Riverside, UC San Diego, UC San Francisco and UC Santa Barbara in California’s pilot of CA COVID Notify, a new tool that uses the Exposure Notification system jointly created by Google and Apple.

The UCLA pilot will be open to all students, staff and faculty. You will receive a BruinPost reminder, along with additional information and instructions on how to add CA COVID Notify to your smartphone once the pilot officially begins.

What is CA COVID Notify?

CA COVID Notify, which is managed by the state of California, permits a user who tests positive for COVID-19 to quickly and anonymously notify close contacts that they may have been exposed to the virus, thus allowing them to seek medical attention and reduce risk to others.

Notifications are only sent to people who have opted into CA COVID Notify and met the close contact criteria — being within 6 feet of a contagious individual for 15 minutes or more.

Here are a few important things you should know:

1. CA COVID Notify uses a privacy-first approach. Privacy is paramount. No user information, including names or where a user has been, is tracked or shared with other users. Users may decide whether they want to share a verified positive test result with CA COVID Notify and then determine whether they want to share that result with other users. Location information is never collected, and user identities are strictly confidential. Neither Apple nor Google has access to this information, nor does UCLA. Learn more about how it works.

2. Participation in this program is voluntary and users can opt out at any time. However, we strongly encourage participation. The more people who participate in the program, the more effective it will be at identifying potential exposures and reducing the spread of COVID-19.

3. Our collective efforts and the success of this program can help protect our Bruin community — and may eventually aid all of California by reducing cases of COVID-19.

To learn more about the CA COVID Notify pilot at UCLA, please read this UCLA Newsroom article and visit our CA COVID Notify landing page. In addition, more information about CA COVID Notify is available from the state of California.

Thank you for your commitment to keeping our Bruin community safer. Together, we can help slow the spread of COVID-19.

Sincerely,

Michael J. Beck

Administrative Vice Chancellor

Co-chair, UCLA COVID-19 Response and Recovery Task Force

Michael Meranze

Professor of History

Immediate Past Chair, Academic Senate

Co-chair, UCLA COVID-19 Response and Recovery Task Force