“DC CAN COVID-19 Exposure Notification System Ceasing Operations May 11”

photo by Emma K Alexandra

Justin writes:

“Understandable but unfortunate. It was DC CAN that informed me of my April 2022 exposure, and it’s instruction to rapid test resulted in my positive diagnosis a good 36 hours before I developed symptoms, allowing me to protect others in the interlude.”

From DC Health:

“DC Health would like to thank residents for using the DC COVID Alert Notice (DC CAN) COVID-19 exposure notification system to help protect yourself and our community. Exposure notifications helped to prevent thousands of cases of COVID-19 during the pandemic and allowed people to take action to prevent its spread. In DC alone, over 37,000 people used DC CAN to anonymously alert others of possible exposure to COVID-19, generating more than a million exposure notifications.

The nationwide program that supports the DC CAN exposure notification system will discontinue operations on May 11, 2023. As a result,

your phone will no longer notify you if you were near someone who tested positive for COVID-19. Your privacy has been protected, and no GPS location or personally identifiable information was collected or stored. DC Health will alert District residents if exposure notifications become available again in the future.

DC Health would like to encourage residents to continue to take precautions to prevent the spread of COVID-19. More information on how to protect yourself can be found at cdc.gov/coronavirus.”