Quarter of the population downloaded CoronaMelder

Just over a quarter, 26 percent, of the Netherlands population have downloaded and installed the government's coronavirus notification app CoronaMelder, departing Health Minister Hugo de Jonge said in a letter to parliament on Wednesday.

“The number of warnings has gone down, since the Netherlands went into lockdown on December 15”, De Jonge said. “The evaluation team concluded that this is likely due to less social interactions. The expectation is that when social interaction increases again and the spread of the virus is still possible, the number of notifications will rise again.”

By February 22, 115.613 people reported that they tested positive on the app and thereby were able to warn other people that they could possibly be carrying the virus.

The CoronaMelder uses Bluetooth to exchange unique codes between apps that spent longer than 15 minutes within 1.5 meters of each other. If someone reports on the app that they tested positive, the app warns all other phones that it exchanged codes with. The codes are selected randomly and are therefore not linked to one individual.