Pandemic
Corona-Warn-App also records its own self-test results
The federal government’s official Corona warning app is available in a new version with many innovations. photo
© Bernd Weißbrod/dpa
With the flattening of the corona pandemic, the official warning app of the federal government has also disappeared from the headlines. Now there is a new version – with many changes.
The makers of the official federal corona warning app (CWA) have released a new version of the application. With version 3.0, the results of self-made quick tests can also be recorded without official confirmation. A call to the verification hotline is no longer necessary. Therefore, the verification hotline will be discontinued at the end of January, the project team from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), Deutsche Telekom and SAP announced in a blog entry.
Previously, an official positive rapid or PCR test was required in the application for a warning via the Corona-Warn-App. With version 3.0, warnings after a positive self-test are now also possible. Users with a positive test result can thus trigger a warning from the CWA themselves without having to request a transaction number from the verification hotline beforehand. This procedure applies both to positive results from PCR tests and rapid antigen tests officially arranged in test centers that were not transmitted digitally to the CWA, and to positive results from so-called point-of-care PCR tests (PCR -quick tests) and self-tests.
Built-in facilitations
The test and warning concept was made easier as a result of the expected further course of the pandemic. In order to prevent mass abuse of the self-warning function, positive self-tests can only be entered once every three months. Otherwise nothing changes in the core functions of the app – risk determination and risk warning.
The CWA was developed in the summer of 2020 to curb infection rates with the coronavirus. The CWA anonymously registers people who have been at a distance of two meters or less for a longer period of time as high-risk contacts.
The app has had over 48 million downloads since 2020. It is not certain how many smartphones it is still active on. According to information from December 2022, the contracts for the operators of the CWA have been extended until the end of May 2023. This results in a further 23 million euros. Since the introduction of the CWA in June 2020, the app has already cost more than 220 million euros, the Ministry of Health told the daily newspaper “Welt”.
Blog entry for the new version Current key figures of the Corona-Warn-App Corona-Warn-App in the Apple App Store Corona-Warn-App in the Google Play Store “World” report on CWA costs