China develops Big Brother-style app to show if you’re near a coronavirus victim
CHINA has developed an app that will tell users if they've come into "close contact" with people infected with coronavirus.
The new software will allow users in the country to scan a QR code via apps such as Alipay, WeChat or QQ to make an inquiry about whether they have come into contact with someone carrying the deadly virus.
People are urged to register their phone number and national ID number to use the service.
China's national news agency Xinhua said: "After registering with a phone number, users need to enter their name and [government-issued national] ID number to know whether they were in close contact with someone infected.
"Every registered phone number can be used to inquire for three ID numbers."
Government guidelines state that anyone who has come into "close contact" with the deadly virus should stay at home and contact health authorities.
"Close contact" refers to someone who has come in close distance, with no effective protection, with confirmed cases, suspected cases or mild cases while the person was ill or showed symptoms of being ill, according to China’s National Health Commission.
It can include: People who work close together, share the same classroom or live in the same house.
Medical staff, family members or other people who have been in close contact with patients in a closed environment and other patients in the same room and their caregivers.
Plus, passengers and crew members who have been in the same transportation facility with patients (confirmed and suspected cases) and infected cases (mild cases and asymptomatic cases).
Hong Kong-based technology lawyer at the law firm DLA Piper Carolyn Bigg told the BBC: "From a Chinese perspective this is a really useful service for people.
"It’s a really powerful tool that really shows the power of data being used for good."
There are now 43,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus around the world - while there has been a total of 1,018 deaths from the virus.
The majority of these have occurred in the city of Wuhan in China's Hubei province - the epicentre of the outbreak.
In the UK, there are 8 confirmed cases of coronavirus, with those infected remaining in quarantine.
A scout leader is suspected of being the “super-spreader” who infected 11 other Brits with deadly coronavirus on a skiing holiday.
They include two NHS GPs who are feared to have passed the contamination on to their patients in Brighton.
Meanwhile, a horrifying new map shows how five million Wuhan residents fled ground-zero before the Chinese city was placed on lockdown.
The data by Southampton University estimates the virus's spread for the next three months.
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It's based on the mobile phone and flight data of 60,000 of five million residents who fled Wuhan - where coronavirus originated - before the region was properly locked down.
And in the US, the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University made a real-time tracker for the global spread of the virus.
A realtime-data based dashboard that shows just how far the virus has spread can be accessed.
