Thread by @aaronsnow

Tl;dr: I believe the primary reason why #COVIDAlert (and the many sibling apps in the U.S.) didn't meet expectations starts with the fact that the process of reporting an infection into the app depended on a huge, highly fragmented web of health and test result providers. 1/

https://twitter.com/aaronsnow/status/1539674610970640384

Before the prevalence of at-home tests, there was enormous diversity in the "last mile" of test result delivery into patients' hands: in-person, texts, phone calls, paper reports, websites, hotlines. That diversity was not managed, and was probably unmanageable, centrally.

Combined with the uncertainty about just how much good EN apps could do, it was never, and could never be, a high priority for provincial authorities to create, and incentivize compliance with, the array of protocols necessary for all those different providers to,

during a fast-moving crisis, spend their limited time, dollars and attention on reliably delivering the app's "one time key" codes into the hands of infected patients. And without those codes, the app was never going to reach its full potential as it did in some other countries.

@JPSoucy's "regular reminder" was just the tip of the iceberg. It's not just provinces' goodwill that PHAC neds; it also needs their limited time, energy, money, expertise, and local political capital.

https://twitter.com/jpsoucy/status/1491940398297661443

Federated solutions to national crises are difficult at best, and harder still when, on top of all else, the work requires technology expertise to be both present in and coordinated across FPTM lines (to say nothing of a diverse array of lab vendors and physicians' offices).

Long story short, the technology and process difficulties were anticipated, but I don't think the lack of appetite and/or ability to tackle them was well understood at the outset. In the moment(s), that last-mile problem was perpetually a bridge too far.

Anyway, I wrote a little more about it here. Loving shout-out to the folks current & former at @CDS_GC, @TBSCanada / #GCDigital, @ONdigital, @GovCanHealth, @Shopify, and other political and public service friends who were on that far-flung team. aaronsnow.net/2022/06/22/why…