COVID-19 screening tool bug

Does anyone know how to give feedback about a bug to the creators of the COVID-19 screening tool at https://www.apple.com/covid19/ ?


There appears to be a serious bug in it, or perhaps several bugs.


When the end user selects this option:


"I've been near someone who has COVID-19

I was at least 6 feet away and was not exposed to a sneeze or cough"


...in response to this question:


"In the last 14 days, what is your exposure to others who are known to have COVID-19?"


...the output on the summary/recommendation screen includes this feedback to the end user:


"Your Responses

  • [...]
  • You have not been exposed to others who are sick"
  • [...]


This is wrong. This is either a design error or a bug in the software.


An end user... no, a person... when a person was seated 8-to-10 feet from colleagues who are now quite sick for over 20 hours over five days in a couple of medium-sized conference rooms, and one of the colleagues has just tested positive for COVID-19, that person HAS BEEN exposed to someone who is sick. If the person has also taken several 5-to-8 minute Uber rides in the past week in cars with drivers who didn't cough, but also did not appear to be in the best of health, that person has also likely been exposed to the virus. The screening tool misses that scenario, too.


The response options presented for the personal exposure question do not sufficiently capture the scenarios in which a person was likely exposed to the virus. This is especially true because it is almost impossible in many places to get a COVID-19 test. They are rightfully being rationed for the critically ill and for healthcare workers. This rationing creates a situation in which millions of people who have COVID-19 will pass through the screening tool without being advised to self-isolate/quarantine simply because no one they know has been able to get the rationed test.


Please let me know how I can get this feedback to someone who can make the necessary changes to the screening tool. As it is, it is dangerously permissive in the decision support it provides to patients, almost criminally so. Apple is a great organization and it is shocking that in the most important tool it has ever created for humanity it has allowed a bug like this through. I love Apple's minimalist approach to design, but medical decision support is not a place to let a minimalist aesthetic take precedence over what should be an exhaustive navigation through the critical decision tree.


Thanks in advance for your work, which is clearly not easy and is now likely unduly influenced by people who are not competent in the life-and-death domain in which they find themselves dabbling.


Be well...

-JP








Posted on Mar 28, 2020 4:50 PM

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Posted on Mar 28, 2020 5:12 PM

We are all end users like you, not Apple. However, you can try this web feedback link that get to an Apple Employee:


Contact Us - Website Feedback - Apple


Use the first option listed in the pulldown.

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COVID-19 screening tool bug

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