The Belgian Federal Government launched a new IOS and Android app on 1 May intended to help in the fight against Covid-19 infection, according to a press release following a Inter-Ministerial Conference (CIM) of Public Health Ministers.
“GovApp” will be the third application devised by the Belgian government for tackling Covid-19. Previous Covid applications launched by the government include Coronalert and CovidSafe, which the government has described as “not only convenient, but also very popular.”
Coronalert has been downloaded 3.9 million times and CovidSafe over 8.6 million times, according to government figures.
The new app intends to bring together Covid-19 services and information under one interface. Through the app, Belgian residents can generate testing codes, be warned of cases of high-risk Covid contacts, and consult local Covid policies.
“The COVID-19 crisis has shown once again the importance of correct and reliable government information that the citizen can find in a user-friendly way,” the ministers write.
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According to the press release, the old text-based system was costly for the public authorities and the new app will be more secure against fraud and identity theft.
GovApp, developed by Flemish developer Digitaal Vlaanderen and ICT collective ASBL Smals, will not require any login credentials to use. The application allows users to login using just their mobile phone number. All the application’s data is encrypted end to end.
It is not clear how many Belgians will actually download the application. Covid measures and cases are at some of their lowest since the start of the pandemic.
Daily Covid-19 infections dropped to a 7-day average of 5,808 cases in May, some of the lowest infections recorded since before the spike of Omicron infections in January.
The Belgian Consultative Committee has also suggested that it will likely scrap Belgium’s infamous Covid-19 barometer in May, as measures ease across Europe.
