CovidConnect

Main Screen

Inspiration

Two of the reasons that COVID-19 has spread so quickly around the world are because of the long incubation period that is up to 14 days and the lack of test kits to find infected patients. There is a need for an application that can conduct intense contact tracing to decrease transmission of COVID-19.

What it does

CovidConnect helps users track people who they have had close contact with for the past 14 days. When users leave the house, they can click the start button to start tracking. When one user enters an immediate parameter of another user, their CovidConnect apps record the other person's ID. If that person self-reports showing symptoms related to COVID-19, such as coughing and difficulty breathing, the user receives an alert from CovidConnect to self-quarantine for 14 days.

How we built it

We used Swift, CoreBluetooth framework, and CoreLocation framework to build CovidConnect. When a user presses the start button, the device turns into an iBeacon and starts detecting nearby beacons. When the user presses the stop button, the device stops advertising and looking for other beacons. The users are connected by Firebase and Firestore, identified by their user IDs. When one user is diagnosed, information passes to all users that stored the patient's user ID within the last 14 days.

Challenges we ran into

It is challenging for us minimize the data stored by our app; we considered making a "data web", but could not find databases that allow for that.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud that CovidConnect can automatically record who users have contacted, without asking them to manually log the interactions and thus increases the scope of the tracking. We have also started developing the app!

What we learned

We gained knowledge about multiple frameworks and APIs such as Corebluetooth and MultiPeerConnectivity. We also looked into the policies that different governments implement to decrease the transmission of COVID-19.

What's next for CovidConnect

Our first step is to finish building CovidConnect using Swift. Then, we will start testing the app with our family members when we go out to buy groceries.