Thank you very much to everyone who has downloaded and used the app. The information you give us is essential to understand COVID-19. Large numbers of our team – from PhD students right up to Professors – are now working to analyse and disseminate the data that’s coming in daily, while the app development team at Zoe is working hard to update the app and improve functionality based on your feedback.Don’t forget to keep logging even if you no symptoms yet, and encourage more people to use the app, particularly the elderly and those who are vulnerable. With your help we can rapidly get another million citizen scientists on board to help our health service.
Professor Tim Spector, lead study researcher
27 March 2020
Symptom Tracker App hits 1.5 million UK users
More than one and a half million people in the UK have downloaded the COVID-19 Symptom Tracker App.
More than one and a half million people in the UK have downloaded the COVID-19 Symptom Tracker App developed by King’s College London, together with Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, the National Institute of Health Research Guy’s and St Thomas’ Biomedical Research Centre and healthcare start-up ZOE Global LTD.
Half (49%) of app users are 18-39 (26% of the population), with the lowest reporting group (9.5%) being aged 60+ who are most at-risk and represent 23.8% of the UK population. The team are focussed on making the experience as usable as possible by all ages, especially those classified as high risk by the NHS.
Users’ data is held securely and in accordance with General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) and with strict data security measures in place.
The free monitoring app was developed as a partnership between researchers at King’s and health data science company ZOE - itself a spin-out from King’s - and is widely available, at no cost, to health staff and the general public who wish to contribute to this research. Clinicians from St Thomas’ Hospital have also helped advise on symptoms.
The app is currently only available in the UK, but will be launched in the next few days in the US.
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Professor of Genetic Epidemiology