What Is the Linux Foundation Do-ing To Help Combat COVID-19?

2020 is fast drawing to a close and the COVID-19 pandemic is still raging on throughout the world. There have been over 49 million confirmed infections and more than 1.2 million deaths. With infec-tion numbers rising and new lockdown measures being introduced in many countries, the pandemic isn’t showing signs of slowing down. All sorts of companies have tried to help in some way and the Linux Foundation is no different. Here’s a look at what the technology consortium’s doing and how it hopes to stop the spread of the virus.

Linux Foundation Public Health

Linux Foundation Public Health is a new initiative that was formally launched back in July. Its pur-pose is simple: to use Linux’s open source technology to slow down infection rates and hopefully prevent the virus from spreading. As of November, two separate apps have been developing as part of the initiative’s efforts to tackle the pandemic. Both of these function in pretty much the same way. When downloaded onto a device, the app notifies the user whenever they’ve been in close contact with someone who has recently had a positive COVID-19 test result. The idea behind these apps is simple. If you get notified, you should then self-isolate for the appropriate amount of time and if you happened to catch the virus from the infected person you came into contact with, you shouldn’t be able to pass it on to others while self-isolating.

Even though this technology is public, there’s still a level of privacy to it. If you get notified that you’ve been in contact with someone who’s tested positive for the virus, the apps can’t tell you who the infected person was. Even if they could tell you, they wouldn’t so as to protect the infected per-son’s privacy and rights. While the apps can be described as social in that they’re intended for mainstream use and were developed for a common cause, they’re anonymous as no personal de-tails are involved or shared.

Apps Developed So Far

The two apps that have been developed so far are COVID Shield and COVID Green. The former was put together by a team of several dozen volunteers at Shopify in Canada, while the latter was developed by NearForm, an enterprise software developer based in Ireland. The way these apps work is by relying on Bluetooth technology. Once you have either of these apps on your phone, your phone’s Bluetooth technology tracks who you’ve been in close contact with (by tracking other people’s phone) and should one of them have tested positive for the virus, you’ll be notified.

There’s one major downside to these apps and that’s the fact that for them to be really effective, everyone who has symptoms needs to get tested and have their positive result uploaded into the system as soon as possible. If someone has the symptoms but hasn’t done a test and isn’t in the system, there’s nothing stopping you walking past them and potentially getting the virus yourself. Should this happen, your app wouldn’t be able to notify you of the possible infection because the person you passed by wasn’t in the system.

Will They Work?

Many people believe that contact tracing apps can have a positive effect on controlling the spread of the virus and reducing its negative effects. The advantage of Linux, of course, is that it’s open source, so the apps are free to download and can be customised to meet a country or area’s spe-cific needs. Dan Kohn, the general manager of Linux Foundation Public Health, has said on this subject: ’Essentially we think exposure notification could have a big impact on reducing the overall rate of exposure.’ Even if just a few people get notified and self-isolate to avoid potentially infecting others, the apps will still have helped. The goal right now is to get contact tracing apps to be used by as many people as possible so that the apps can have a much bigger and more noticeable effect on preventing further infections.

Apps developed by Linux Foundation Public Health are currently being used in several countries (including, of course Canada and Ireland.) While the initiative hopes to roll out these apps to more places as soon as possible, it’s also looking at developing apps that can do even more to help bring the pandemic to a halt, such as giving users information about local testing facilities and, further down the line, providing users with details on where to get vaccinated.

Linux’s open source operating systems technology is already playing a role in stopping COVID-19 and may continue to play a key role in the months to come. Download Linux contact tracing apps and play your part in reducing the spread. If you’re new to this technology, have a read of our arti-cle Top 10 Tips for Linux Beginners to get a feel for what it is and how it’s used.