Where is the Exposure Notification app for New York State?

New York just released their new app today: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/covid-alert-ny/id1524123298

I get the same thing. I searched the App Store and there is not an exposure notification app for NYS. The NYS Department of Health Alerts app is for “healthcare and first-responder communities and are not available to the general public.” Not sure why Apple says it is.

At least as of August the NY contact tracing app was not yet available - source -> https://9to5mac.com/2020/08/24/covid-19-exposure-notification-api-states/

And the NYSDOH appears to have no mention of any app availability -> https://coronavirus.health.ny.gov/new-york-state-contact-tracing. They appear to be doing contact tracing by having staff manually calling people.

Long help text in “exposure notification” gives the impression that if no state app exists there is a default mode without the state app. Did I get that right or is a state app required as a minimum for it to work.

Without an app there may be a state default mode, but that is people on staff with the state questioning people who test positive about where they have been, and then trying to identify people who also were there and then calling them on the telephone.

So without an app, it is all manual tracing based on what the positive testing person can say about where they’ve been and so forth. There is no actual technology behind any of that sort of contact tracing. It’s just people questioning people and trying to follow up.

The API that Apple and Google developed months ago requires state health departments to develop their own state app to use that API for anonymous contact tracing. Almost no State has yet done so.

Both Apple and Google said they will not be developing any contact tracing app themselves. They are not interested in doing that. They provide the API in iOS and a android, and will partner with any State that want’s to develop and app if the state wants help coding it.

But the bottom line is that it is 100% up to each State to develop and release their own public health contact tracing app. Apple and Google provided the means to do that anonymously, but they are not going to assume the role of a public health authority and make and distribute a contact tracing app.

Have you tried contacting the NY State dept. of health about it? Is their app just delayed maybe? Or did they find issues with it they need to fix? Might be worth seeing if their is a general info email address or telephone number to call and ask them what’s up?

BTW, I do see others that the 9to5 Mac article mentioned listed when I search the App Store for “exposure notification”. The ones for Virginia, Delaware etc are listed there. So the states that are reportedly offering apps do appear to have apps available.

3 states do have an app. New York is not one of them. However, with iOS 13.7 an app is not needed if the State health department has implemented a tracing protocol that can take advantage of the updated tracing API. I don’t think any states support it yet, however. If you have Location Services on for Location Based Alerts and Significant Locations the phone will notify you automatically when a state health department can support the API. The phone must have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth turned on all the time for it to work.

Thanks Lawrence, but I knew that. But when I go to exposure notifications in settings (iOS 13.7, and I have wifi and BT always enabled on my iPhone XS) it says, yes, North Carolina has support for that, go to the App Store. But there is nothing for NC in the App Store and no way to enable exposure notifications, just as the OP stated for NY State.

So the OP has a valid point, although I think it is our own State and Federal Government that is failing us, not Apple nor Google. The existing setup in iOS says something exists that clearly does not. And it doesn’t exist because the states are not providing support for it. NY State is admittedly clearly doing things in an archaic manner of having staff question people and call others. They have elected to not use technology at all to help with contact tracing.

Part of me wishes I was back in Canada, where the federal government’s Health Canada released an app some time ago, from the federal public health agency for the whole nation.

Have you used the App Store's search function to look for "New York"?

Same experience. Also did not find anything relevant in App Store. Exposure Notification process would not continue. Was not able to enable it.