During his address to the nation on April 14, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had appealed every Indian to install the Aarogya Setu app. The app helps in contact tracing which has so far been done manually. What it means is simple terms is tracking down people who came in contact with a COVID-19 patient. Those who came in contact go into self-quarantine to break the infection chain.
The application rolled out its fifth version on Wednesday. This new update will enable users to apply for an e-pass using this app.
The e-pass feature has a “coming soon” message and it will still take some time to become a functional. Once the e-pass feature is functional, it will categorise people in three colours Green, Orange and Red based on the health and contact matrix of the individual. This will act as a filter for individuals visiting public places.
The e-pass system is similar to the mechanism created in China. As per the Chinese travel model,
For now one can apply an e-pass online or through a WhatsApp number. There are no categories to classify people that are being followed at the moment.
On the other hand, the second new feature in the app is the 'COVID Updates feature', which provides the statistics of the total number of confirmed, recovered and deceased across India. The application has a breakdown based on users place of residence, on top of the chart.
This data will be a useful means to look at the intensity of cases in a local area, providing the users with information about a sense of risk level in their neighbourhood. Currently, the data is limited to the state-wise distribution of cases.
Earlier, Aarogya Setu had beat other applications like Pokemon Go to become the fastest application to reach 50 million users in just 13 days.
Meanwhile, the government is also planning to introduce a feature phone version of Aarogya Setu soon for non-smartphone users.
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