The Newfoundland and Labrador government says its health minister was mistaken when he told reporters this week that Ottawa "gave up" on the COVID Alert app.
A statement Thursday from the provincial Health Department said Health Minister John Haggie "had not been provided the most recent information" on the use of the COVID Alert app when he made those comments.
Haggie said Wednesday the federal government had stopped supporting the smartphone application because of low uptake.
The COVID Alert app was launched in July 2020 and allows anyone who tests positive for COVID-19 to input a one-time key code that will trigger contact notifications to phones that have been nearby.
The Health Department's statement says the COVID Alert app is active in the province and though officials do not always us it, it "remains one of the tools in the toolbox" used by the province to help curb the spread of COVID-19.
The federal government's website for the app shows it has been downloaded more than 6.7 million times and that users have inputted more than 37,300 keys.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 31, 2021
