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In Alabama, the app is called GuideSafe. In New York, it’s the COVID Alert NY. In Wyoming, it’s called the Care19 Alert. The kind of information that the apps offer also varies, but the
basic principle is the same. For example, if you get a notice in New York — usually a phone call — that you tested positive, you'll also get a code from the health department that you
then can enter into the app to send the information anonymously to anyone you might have been near. See more Health & Wellness offers > While the app works best when you leave it
running in the background on your phone, you don't have to leave the app on all the time. You can turn it off and on whenever you want. As of Dec. 16, at least 22 states, the District
of Columbia and two U.S. territories were using contact tracing apps, mostly based on the Apple-Google technology: Alabama, Arizona (phased rollout across the state), California, Colorado,
Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon (phased rollout with statewide
availability expected in January), Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Virginia, Washington state and Wyoming, plus Guam and Puerto Rico. (On iPhones, Colorado, Connecticut, the
District of Columbia, Maryland and Washington state have enabled an opt-in to Exposure Notifications in the phones’ device settings but have no separate app.) And in the absence of statewide
apps, Georgia Tech, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the City of Santa Fe in New Mexico are using apps in their communities. A Massachusetts app is on track to be developed.
Oklahoma expected its app to be rolled out in November, but it has not been released yet. Wisconsin’s app is expected to come out later in December. South Carolina’s health department
initially committed to creating an app for its state — SC Safer Together available in both the Apple App Store and on Google Play — but state legislators blocked the state health department
and other state agencies from using cellphone apps for contact tracing because of lawmakers’ security and privacy concerns. Utah debuted its own app in April but turned off its Bluetooth and
GPS location tracking by July. WILL IT WORK EVERYWHERE? If you travel outside of your state usinyour local COVID tracing app, it may work in coordination with some other nearby state apps.
For example, apps from New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania are compatible with each other.