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Published 15 Feb 2023
Know more about COVID-19 response apps and pick the best app for your needs.
A COVID-19 response app is a digital tool that assists both individuals and organizations in addressing COVID-19-related health and safety concerns. It can be used for contact tracing, case investigation, and risk assessment. As a precautionary measure against COVID-19, businesses should encourage staff to use a COVID-19 response app to help identify potential risks.
Free version: Available for teams of up to 10
Pricing: Premium plan $19/month (with free 30-day trial period)
Platforms supported: Available on mobile app (iOS and Android) or a web-based software
SafetyCulture is a digital tool that will help your business streamline employee and visitor health screening, standardize disinfection and cleaning procedures, and solve logistics challenges of infection control by doing away with paper records and saving your data in the cloud. You can do all this and more using a single mobile app.
As the winner of Best SaaS Product for Health & Safety in 2020, SafetyCulture allows you to create a customized COVID-19 checklist template, or any other kind of template, with multiple response types to fit every business need, including media files, annotations, number values and ranges, date & time, and digital signature—all for free. Alternatively, you can get and modify a template from the Public Library, or convert any of your existing paper forms into a digital template through smart scan
SafetyCulture also allows for better collaboration and reporting of COVID-19 issues. Through this COVID-19 response app, you can choose to be notified or to notify others when a member of your organization answers a specific question in a template. This is especially important when it comes to infection control, which requires rapid response and action on your part as an employer/business owner. With real-time in-app, SMS, and email notifications, it will be easy for you and your employees to stay updated on the COVID-19 concerns within your organization.
Features:
Best For: All industries and business sizes in all countries
Pricing: Free for teams with ten members or less. For larger teams, the paid plans start at $19 a month with a 30-day free trial.
COVIDSafe is the dedicated COVID-19 response app and tracking app for Australia. People who test positive are assisted by health officials to log their information into the app, which will then be used for contact tracing. By keeping your device’s Bluetooth enabled, the COVIDSafe app can track close contacts with someone who has tested positive.
Best For: People in Australia
Pricing: Free
ServiceNow is an Information Technology Service Management (ITSM) provider that can also be used to help manage COVID-19 processes in the workplace. As a COVID-19 response app, ServiceNow can be used to help with COVID-19 reporting, COVID-19 risk inspection, and more.
Best For: Managing COVID-19 in the workplace
Pricing: Dependent on the organization’s needs
In France, the government’s COVID-19 Response App is called TousAntiCovid. This app uses Bluetooth technology to notify you if you just passed by or interacted with someone infected with COVID-19 for at least five minutes within a two-meter radius distance. After, the app will prompt you with a health pathway proposal for your consideration.
Best For: People in France
DHIS2 is a global open-source health information management system and COVID-19 response app created for managing health data around the world. Using DHIS2, you can manage COVID-19 risks and cases with the help of data from all over the world in real-time through surveillance, vaccine trackers and counters, and health data toolkits for better information dissemination.
Best For: Dissemination of health-related information and improving COVID-19 mitigation plans
Corona-Warn-App is Germany’s COVID-19 Response App. Much like other country-specific contact tracing apps, this one is also reliant on Bluetooth. Users are encouraged to open the Corona-Warn-App at least once a day to get updates on who is positive around them regularly.
Best For: People in Germany
The MyCOVIDRisk COVID-19 response app aims to help users analyze themselves and their potential for having COVID-19. This app prompts you to list your location, your intent for going out, and the number of people you expect to interact with to help calculate your risk for contracting the virus.
Best For: Calculating your risk for COVID-19
For educating yourself and others on all things COVID-19, consider using EdApp. This COVID-19 response app can be used for educating a single individual, a team, or a company on COVID-19 protocols, facts, care guidelines, and more, with some of them created by international health experts.
Best For: Learning about all things related to COVID-19 and training for it
Pricing: Free plan available with limitations. For full access to all features, the paid plan starts at $1.95 per user per month with a 30-day trial.
In England and Wales, the dedicated COVID-19 response app by the government is the NHS Covid-19 app. In addition to an alert system that lets you know if you’ve been exposed to a COVID-19-positive individual, the app also comes with a symptom tracker and information on COVID-19.
Best For: People in England and Wales
The Coronavirus App is a COVID-19 response app that shows the cases of COVID-19 from all around the world in real time. This app gives you a map of the world that you can interact with to see a country’s COVID-19 statistics as they are logged, such as the current number of active cases, deaths, and recoveries.
Best For: Monitoring COVID-19 data
Pricing: Free, but there is an option to donate a minimum of $3 a month.
While it is incredibly difficult to manage a business during a pandemic, business owners should keep in mind that, despite numerous uncontrollable factors, there are still ways for them to better position themselves in the handling of this current crisis. One such way is implementing the use of a COVID-19 response app, as using one can help with the following tasks:
Having a COVID-19 response app with several state-specific (USA) pages on business reopening as well as several COVID-19 checklists and templates can be a great help. Unlike other COVID-19 response apps that are solely focused on infection control measures, a flexible response app that can also take into account plans for business continuity and returning to work profitably safely is more helpful in the long run.
Aside from helping lower employee exposure to COVID-19 through mobile contact tracing forms and digital COVID-19 screening checklists, having a COVID-19 response app also aids companies in managing and ensuring workplace safety. With allocated pages for the specific workplace hazards of each industry and accompanying guides on the relevant safety regulations, having a response app can help prioritize the protection of employees from any and all types of harm.
A multipurpose COVID-19 response app will also be beneficial in the long run. If your business has already taken the necessary steps to prepare for business reopening and reduce the chances of a COVID-19 outbreak occurring in your workplace, you can continue using your existing response app as a digital operations platform. Through collaborative actions and proactive issue capturing, your app should empower both you and your employees to work together more efficiently.
Although there is an increased emphasis on using digital tools, not only for COVID-19 but also for day-to-day operations, there have also been concerns regarding how COVID-19 data is handled. Personally identifiable information (such as health conditions, location, name, age, and contact details) is often necessary for contact tracing to be effective. Yet, despite its importance to managing public health, the collection, use, and storage of such data may have negative impacts on individual privacy if not handled correctly and transparently.
In line with this, having a COVID-19 response app that remains open and honest always regarding the personal data the application collects and the actions taken to keep user data secure should be your first choice. Aside from a GDPR-compliant data retention policy, look for an app that also uses AES-256 (Advanced Encryption Standard) and TLS (Transport Layer Security) for data at rest and data in transit, respectively.
Here is a comparison table of the ten most useful COVID-19 response apps today:
COVID-19 Response App
Best For
Free Version?
Pricing
SafetyCulture
General COVID-19 risk management and response in all countries and businesses
Yes, for teams with less than ten members
Starts at $19 per month with a 30-day trial
COVIDSafe
People in Australia
Yes
N/A
ServiceNow
Managing COVID-19 in the workplace
No
Dependent on the organization’s needs
TousAntiCovid
People in France
DHIS2
Dissemination of health-related information and improving COVID-19 mitigation plans
Corona-Warn-App
People in Germany
MyCovidRisk
Calculating your risk for COVID-19
EdApp by SafetyCulture
Learning about all things related to COVID-19 and training for it
Yes, but with limitations
Starts at $1.95 per user per month with a 30-day trial
NHS Covid-19
People in England and Wales
The Coronavirus App
Monitoring COVID-19 data
Yes, but the free version does not have vaccination data
Optional to pay a starting fee of $3 a month
Roselin Manawis
Roselin Manawis is a content writer and researcher for SafetyCulture. She has experience in news writing and content marketing across different fields of discipline. Her background in Communication Arts enables her to leverage multimedia and improve the quality of her work. She also contributed as a research assistant for an international study and as a co-author for two books in 2020. With her informative articles, she aims to ignite digital transformation in workplaces around the world.