Mobile apps that help track the spread of coronavirus in South Korea now rank as six of the top 15 downloads on the country’s Google Play app store CNN reported.
Developers of one of the apps told CNN that they have been getting a surge in downloads since launching their products on 11th February 2020. The developers source their data from public government information.
“The installs are increasing about 20,000 every hour,” according to Bae Won-Seok, one of the developers of Corona 100m.
Corona 100m allows people to see the date that a coronavirus patient was confirmed to have the disease. The app also shows the patient’s nationality, gender, age and where the patient visited.
Bae says the app experienced a recent surge in downloads, due to the escalating number of cases in South Korea, crashing the application’s server.
The app helps its users also see how close they are to coronavirus patients. According to Google Play, the app has received over 11million downloads since its launch.
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Another app by the name Corona Map was made because the government data were hard to understand according to its developer, Lee Jun-young. “I thought it would be nice to mark them on a map,” Lee said.
Lee hopes the government will develop its own apps
The South Korean health officials usually release locations that show where coronavirus patients have been, however, the official information isn’t very visual.
“When I think that this app can prevent the spread of coronavirus patients by advising people not to go to certain places … I feel proud,” said Jun-young. He also hopes the government develops its own app to pick up from where his project started.
South Korea has the largest outbreak of the coronavirus outside Mainland China with 2,337 cases. The outbreak has affected many lives and companies have shut down their operations there.
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