On Apr. 9, 2020, James Petrie, a graduate student in applied mathematics at the University of Waterloo in Canada; Rhys Fenwick, a science communicator from the University of Wollongong, Australia with an advisory contribution by Stanfordﾒs Julie Parsonnet, the George DeForrest Barnett Professor in Medicine.

According to the developers, at least 60 percent of the people in a community must adopt the app before itﾒs effective. The software is open source, which means that as other similar apps become available, they can tap into Covid Watchﾒs anonymous notification protocols to increase its usefulness.