SALT LAKE CITY — Utah is beginning beta testing for a new app aimed to help Utahns better track COVID-19 symptoms and help health officials slow the spread of the virus in the state without issuing statewide stay-at-home orders, Gov. Gary Herbert said Wednesday.

Herbert’s announcement of the Healthy Together app came as the Utah Department of Health announced 149 new COVID-19 cases in the state with two new reported deaths.

What is Healthy Together?

The Healthy Together app is now available on Apple and Google Play stores. It allows Utahns to plug in their symptoms each day, tracks that information and prompts users to go to COVID-19 testing locations if the information they enter indicates they should be tested. Users can also choose to share contact lists, which would invite others to use the app.

People can also permit the app to track where they’ve been to allow for better contact tracing locations. They can also choose to anonymously plug in their health data so health officials can view more general information about who is affected by the virus.

Herbert said if more people use the app, it will help public health teams see where the virus is. That information would help them address any potential outbreaks with a “focused approach” rather than issuing widespread stay-at-home orders, he said.

"It’s really about having the right tool in the toolbox to help us do this,” Herbert said. “Until we get a vaccine, these tools are going to help us, in fact, slow the spread of COVID virus."

The app's launch comes after the state released its updated version of the “Utah Leads Together” plan last week, which calls for possible local and region-based restrictions instead of statewide orders based on where COVID-19 cases are being reported. Healthy Together launches a little more than a week before some of Utah’s restrictions are expected to be lifted.

How does Healthy Together work?

The state contracted with mobile app company Twenty to develop the system. Details of that agreement weren’t immediately released, but Paul Edwards, Herbert’s former deputy chief of staff and a member of the state’s COVID-19 task force, said Utah has spent $1.75 million on the app to date and will invest another $1 million as a part of the contract for further updates.

When someone downloads the app, they will be asked to enter their phone number, which leads to a personal identification number they are sent to log in for the first time. They will then be asked to enter their name and give phone permission information before they enter the state the individual lives in.

Users can then start a short survey that asks questions about symptoms they currently have, if they have been in contact with someone who recently tested positive, and which health care provider they would prefer.

Results from the questionnaire then inform a user if he or she should be tested, and the app directs them to the nearest testing site in that case. The results from the questionnaire are then added to a daily checkup history.

“What’s different about this, than some of the programs you’ve seen deployed like Iceland or Singapore that depended on mass adoption for it to be helpful, any adoption of the Healthy Together app is very useful to us in Utah,” Edwards said. “It provides not only the ease of people to get themselves assessed and to appropriate testing as soon as possible … but the kind of tracing and tracking that’s available there for any case that someone becomes symptomatic is useful for the team of health workers who are working with the Department of Health to trace.”

The state health department already conducts contact tracing after someone tests positive for COVID-19. Health experts call that infected individual and ask them to recount where they have been the previous two weeks and who they were with. They use this information to alert others who may have been exposed to the coronavirus.

Jared Allgood, co-founder and chief strategy officer for Twenty, explained that the app gives users the ability to know where they were and if they came in contact with someone else who later tested positive for COVID-19. The app does that by using a phone’s Bluetooth and GPS data, but of which can be toggled on and off from the app’s settings.

Testing results will be made available in the app; if someone tests positive, he or she will receive a call from the state health department and an app user can choose to share data from the app with the state health department worker for more accurate contact tracing. If that data indicates another app user was possibly exposed to a COVID-19 risk at a grocery store or on public transit, the department will notify that person and recommend they get tested.

Location data history will be deleted after 30 days, unless it’s required for legal reasons, because it’s no longer of use for the health department. Users can also delete data when they choose, Allgood said.

Herbert added that the contract says users own all data on the app; the state can only access it with permission, and only information about COVID-19 will be shared with the state health department.

"If you don’t feel good about it, don’t feel comfortable, then we don’t expect you to participate,” Herbert said. “We’re trying to give every indication that you’re in control of the data so you know where it’s going."

Utah Gov. Gary Herbert and state epidemiologist Dr. Angela Dunn discussed the new Healthy Together app and the current coronavirus situation in the state at the daily Utah Department of Health press conference on Tuesday afternoon. Watch the replay of the event below.

As for what the state does with data, Dr. Angela Dunn, the state's epidemiologist, said the information will only be shared with the health department if permission is given. It will not be shared with any other users, she said.

"It is the latest example of how Utah is thinking creatively and outside of the box to really address this pandemic,” she said. “We know that the tried and true public health activities, such as testing, case investigation, contact tracing and active monitoring do work to slow and stop a pandemic. This app is going to complement those efforts to increase our testing and make sure we have a robust contact tracing program."

149 new COVID-19 cases, 2 new deaths reported

With Wednesday's count, there have now been 3,445 cases, 288 hospitalizations and 34 total deaths from the disease since it reached the state.

Both new deaths reported Wednesday were individuals over 85; one was a resident of a long-term facility in Salt Lake County, and the other was from Utah County and was hospitalized at the time of death, Dunn said.

The new numbers indicate a 4.5% increase in positive cases since Tuesday. Of the 76,460 people tested in Utah so far, about 4.5% have tested positive for COVID-19. It’s the seventh straight day that the percentage of people tested positive has declined, which Dunn said was a good sign.

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