Majority of Swiss reluctant to download contact tracing app

A recent survey has shown that more than half of the Swiss population does not intend to download the tracing application SwissCovid.  

Around 56% are not convinced of the utility of the application, according to the survey commissioned by comparison website Comparis published on Thursday. The over-60s are the most skeptical with 63% not keen on downloading the app but even among those under 30, more than 52% remain unconvinced. 

Convincing people of the utility of the application isn’t the only challenge. Some Swiss are not allowed to download it. This is the case, for example, for employees of the St. Gallen cantonal hospital. As they are in daily contact with symptomatic patients, the hospital fears the app will trigger too many false alarms and resulting in unnecessary staff absences. 

However, the Swiss have not been entirely resistant to contact tracing since it was launched on June 25. Downloads of the SwissCovid app reached 1.6 million on Saturday July 4, the Federal Health Office said on Thursday. The population of the country is 8.5 million.

In addition, nearly 25,000 nightclub guests have downloaded a digital pass that enables organisers to collect the contact information of all participants in a secure manner. 

The representative survey commissioned by Comparis was carried out at the end of June among 1,000 people from all regions of Switzerland.