FAQ
Status: 25.08.2021 10:31 a.m.
Almost 60 percent of the population are fully vaccinated, there are fewer warning messages than before – how important is the corona warning app in fighting a pandemic?
Is the corona warning app still useful for people who have been vaccinated?
The use of the app is still recommended by the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) as the publisher of the app for people who have been vaccinated. This is because the probability that a person will contract Covid despite a full vaccination is low – but not zero. “It must be assumed that some people after contact with SARS-CoV-2 become (asymptomatic) PCR-positive despite vaccination and also excrete infectious viruses,” the RKI explains tagesschau.de. “This risk must be further reduced by observing the infection protection measures – and, if necessary, warning relevant contacts with the help of the Corona warning app.” According to the RKI more than 13,000 so-called vaccination breakthroughs (As of August 19) – i.e. Covid diseases of people who have already been fully vaccinated – in now almost 50 million people.
Why do I get fewer warnings than before?
The risk calculation was changed significantly in December 2020. Unlike in the past, short-term low-risk encounters (green warning message) are no longer considered individually, but are summarized. For the risk assessment, a single encounter is no longer decisive, but the sum of the risk minutes per day. As a result, users receive warning messages much less frequently.
What should I do if I get a red warning?
A risk encounter with “increased risk” (message field is highlighted in red) means that in the past 14 days you have met a person who has since tested positive. The contact was quite close, it lasted for one day in total at least five minutes at a distance of up to 1.5 meters (or for example at least ten minutes at a distance between 1.5 and 2.5 meters).
Anyone who receives such a red warning should immediately avoid contact with other people and call their family doctor, the medical on-call service 116 117 or the health department to clarify how to proceed. The decision about a sick leave or the ordering of a quarantine is made by the attending physician or the responsible health department based on their own assessment.
When am I entitled to a free PCR test?
In the Test regulation has been established since Octoberthat all users of the app who have received a red warning are entitled to a free PCR test. However, the information that those affected receive from the medical on-call service or family doctor varies greatly. It is often recommended to only do a PCR test if you also have symptoms of Covid 19 disease. This probably stems from common practice last fall and winter when the health system was often overburdened.
On the other hand, anyone who receives a green warning message (high-risk encounters with “low risk”) is not entitled to a free PCR test.
If there is a red warning message, is a quick test sufficient?
A PCR test is much more accurate than a rapid test and recognizes an infection much earlier. Like the virologist Christian Drosten in the NDR podcast “Coronavirus Update” explained, “the early diagnostic benefit from antigen tests is not so great”. A rapid test usually only shows a positive result “when someone has symptoms” – a PCR test, on the other hand, “two or three days” earlier. It is therefore advisable to do a PCR test immediately when the warning message is red.
The RKI does not want to make a recommendation. “Whether you should be tested without symptoms depends on the situation,” said a spokesman when asked by tagesschau.de.
What does a green warning mean?
Anyone who is shown a risk encounter with “low risk” has had remote contact in the past 14 days with a person who has meanwhile entered a positive test result in the app. However, the RKI estimates the risk of infection to be low. The RKI uses its own calculation key for this purpose.
Encounters that lasted less than nine minutes a day are classified as harmless – no matter how close the smartphones are. The same applies to encounters in which the smartphones were on average more than eight meters apart – regardless of how long the encounter lasted in total.
This is what a green warning message looks like. It says that in the past 14 days you have had contact with someone who has since tested positive. Since the contact was not very close, the risk of infection is classified as low.
Image: Dominik Lauck
It becomes more complicated when encounters took place between these clearly defined areas – for example, when you sat on the bus for 20 minutes three meters away from a person who later tested positive. Other factors then flow into the risk calculation, such as how many days have passed since the encounter – the infectivity varies accordingly – or whether there have been several such distant encounters with people who have tested positive on one day.
The criteria for determining the risk were set “on the basis of empirical values, taking into account the currently available scientific knowledge” by those involved in the project (RKI, Deutsche Telekom, SAP and the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits). This procedure has been adapted again and again – last in April, “to take into account mutated virus variants”.
How do I get the test result on the app?
Users of the Corona warning app can have their own test results transmitted digitally from the laboratory. The QR code that you receive during a PCR test must be scanned with the app in order to then transmit and display the test result. Even if a positive test result was transmitted via the app, it must still be actively passed on by the user of the app to anonymously warn others.
How many people are using the app?
So far, the app has been downloaded more than 32 million times. According to the federal government, around 500,000 users who tested positive also reported this to possible contact persons anonymously via the app – most recently around 700 users per day (as of August 23, 2021).
However, the developers have also found that around 39 percent of the app users do not enter their positive test results in the app and thus forego warning their contacts. Because whether a positive test result is shared or not, basically each person decides for himself.
On which smartphones can the app be installed?
The iOS 12.5 operating system must be installed on the iPhone. This is made available for devices from the iPhone 5s or the iPhone 6. For Apple devices the app here in the app store offered for download.
Android phones must support Bluetooth LE. This is the case from Android 6 – this version was released at the end of 2015. Android phone owners can use the app here in the Google Play Store load.