Warning application
Luca app: Bars and clubs are Corona hotspots
With the help of the Luca app, health authorities can choose between two different levels when making contact. Photo: Christoph Soeder / dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
Against the background of the rapidly increasing number of new corona infections, the search for hotspots is playing an increasingly important role.
Almost three quarters of all warnings from the health authorities in Germany that were generated from the Luca app system went to visitors to bars and clubs.
This emerges from an anonymous evaluation for October, in which over 181,000 warning messages were analyzed. Almost half of the warnings concerned clubs (49.1 percent) and just under a quarter concerned bars (23.2 percent). Warning notices via app and calls to users of the app by the health department were recorded.
In contrast, comparatively few warning messages were sent to restaurant guests. They received 10.9 percent of all warning messages, show the figures published by the operator of the Luca app in Berlin. Almost nine percent of the warnings went to the visitors of events and festivals. Retailers (1.0 percent), cinemas (1.7 percent) and theaters, museums and cultural institutions (together 0.9 percent) hardly played a role. Sports (0.8 percent) and spas / swimming pools (0.6 percent) also did not turn out to be hotspots.
With the help of the Luca system, the health authorities can choose between two different levels when making contact. On the one hand, users can be informed digitally about a general risk of infection. If several people who later tested positive for the coronavirus were at a location recorded with the Luca app, the health authorities can also issue a targeted infection warning and point the people at risk to test centers in the area.
The Luca app has been criticized by data protectionists primarily because of a concept of central data storage. In addition, the use in the health authorities is very different, since some responsible people doubt the effectiveness of the Luca system. Hamburg is the pioneer in use. Almost 69,000 warning messages were triggered there by the health department in November alone.