OVER ONE million people in Ireland have downloaded the track and trace app developed to slow the spread of coronavirus.
Since its release on Tuesday, the HSE's Covid-19 Tracker app has been downloaded over 1.1 million times-- over a fifth of the entire population of Ireland.
A spokesperson for the Health Service Executive (HSE) yesterday revealed that 29% of the adult population over the age of 16 had already downloaded the app, and urged people to "keep it going".
We are at 1,071,581 downloads of the #CovidTrackerApp. That’s 29% of the adult population over 16 in Ireland. With your help, we will get over 30% today. Let’s keep it going. Download the app here➡️ https://t.co/sq3sb5PGj1 pic.twitter.com/ZdNJVEc8lu
— HSE Ireland (@HSELive) July 9, 2020
The news service for the Irish Government, Merrion Street, said the high volume of downloads indicated "an incredible display of solidarity from people in Ireland.
"We hope that more people will continue to join in and use the app over the coming days and weeks."
It is not the first time Irish people have stepped up during the coronavirus pandemic-- when the disease first hit the Republic in the middle of March, the HSE launched the 'be on call for Ireland' campaign.
The campaign asked "all healthcare professionals from all disciplines who are not already working in the public health service to register to be on call for Ireland"-- and people responded in their droves.
24,000 people registered with the campaign in just 24 hours, with healthcare workers to students to volunteers putting their hands up and offering help.
The HSE and Department of Health are asking everyone to download the track and trace app so that close contacts of a confirmed case will be notified immediately if they have been in the presence of Covid-19-- they can then self-isolate and receive a test, slashing the chances of the virus continuing to spread throughout the community.
To find out more, or to download the app, you can visit the Covid tracker website here.
