A new poll issued by The Washington Post and the University of Maryland released Wednesday suggests that Americans are largely split regarding their decisions to use a potential contact tracing app to help fight the coronavirus spread.
Tech giants Apple and Google have collaborated with public health experts to develop forthcoming smartphone apps that can notify users if they have come into contact with a person infected with COVID-19. Yet even with approximately 82 percent of Americans owning smartphones, according to the survey, not every user is sold on the idea of using an app to detect coronavirus cases and exposure.
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Reuters highlights that only 43 percent of smartphone users polled expressed “a great deal” or “a good amount” of trust in Google and Apple.
Some 47 percent expressed similar trust in health insurers, 56 percent in universities and 57 percent in public health agencies.
Thus, when asking respondents who use smartphones if they would also use an available contact tracing app developed by Apple or Google, the results were roughly split; 50 percent replied with either “probably not” or “definitely not,” and the other half said that they would either “definitely” use the app, or “probably” use it.
Only 17 percent of respondents reported that they would “definitely” use a contact tracing app.
Other data collected by the poll showcased widespread support for temporarily blocking all immigration into the U.S. during the coronavirus pandemic, with a majority of 65 percent of respondents supporting the decision.
A similar 64 percent majority found that the current restrictions in place to help quell new cases of the virus are “appropriate.” Still, 22 percent found them to not be restrictive enough, and a slimmer 14 percent regard the current social mandates as too restrictive.
The Washington Post-University of Maryland poll was conducted by telephone through April 21 to 26, using a random national sample of 1,008 adults.
Some 70 percent of respondents were reached on cell phones and 30 percent on landlines. Overall, the results have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
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