NYS COVID Exposure Notifications turned off

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) — You may have received an alert on your phone Friday morning that caused you to pause for a moment.

With the end of government health emergencies, New York State is discontinuing the use of an app that was supposed to alert you if you were exposed to someone who had recently contracted the virus. The catch was that person also needed to have downloaded the app, and have kept it updated.

If you had the alerts activated on your phone, you may have received notification that the app is no longer in use.

A few months into the pandemic in 2020, New York State launched an Exposure Notification app. The goal was for enough people to download the app, and record if they had recently tested positive for COVID. If activated, you’d receive an alert if you came into close contact with someone who was infected.

The system promised privacy and anonymity with the goal of simply alerting a user that they had been exposed, so they could take the appropriate action.

RochesterFirst.com reached out to the NYS Department of Health to find out if there are any plans to use the app down the road and has not heard back.

This resource was separate from the New York State Wallet (Excelsior Pass Plus) used to record your COVID vaccination and booster history and had to be presented to get into certain events and venues.

Meantime, with the expiration of the Federal COVID-19 Public Health Emergency, the Governor’s Office is also ceasing sending out once daily, now weekly, news releases with COVID updates. All state COVID data will continue to be available here.

NY DOH is discontinuing the following dashboards used throughout the pandemic: COVID-19 Breakthrough Data, Regional vaccination Data, and NYS Pop-up Vaccination Data.

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