Sonoma County drops requirement for COVID-19 tracking app

A smartphone application developed to track the health of Sonoma County’s workforce and initially deemed mandatory for employers amid the pandemic reopening will remain voluntary following strong pushback from the business community and a rollout some elected leaders called “horrible.”

Sonoma County health officials touted the IBM-developed app as a quick, easy way for employers to track employee health and bolster countywide coronavirus monitoring efforts, by sharing the data with public health authorities.

But setbacks in the rollout and outcry from employers caused county health officials to immediately and quietly drop a requirement that made its use mandatory, raising questions about the county’s decision to spend $160,000 in development costs on the app.

“To be perfectly blunt, I think the rollout of the app was horrible,” said Supervisor Lynda Hopkins. “It suddenly became mandatory without an opportunity for feedback … and before the employer portion was available on the app store.”

Hopkins said the application is still a good tool, and she shared health officials’ and business leaders’ new vision of pairing its use with other tracking methods developed by individual companies and tailored to those individual needs.

A late May health order issued by Health Officer Dr. Sundari Mase made the app mandatory, for the county’s roughly 250,000-person workforce ― equal to about half of the total population. But before the requirement became effective June 1 it had been dropped, a decision formalized in the latest health order on June 17.

Department of Health Services Director Barbie Robinson, who was featured in a video presentation about the app for IBM, said she doesn’t see the app as a waste of money or a failure.

“I think the data we’re receiving is important,” she said. “We would hope, along with all of the other mitigation measures, that folks will comply with that. It helps us understand how the disease is spreading.”

Employees using the app are able to screen themselves for symptoms and exposure to COVID-19, and employers use the app to verify those wellness checks before the start of shifts. Data is stored anonymously on IBM’s cloud, where Sonoma County health officials can access the information, officials said.

The app also includes a feed with links to Sonoma County coronavirus statistics, health orders and Mase’s regular weekday video updates.

But concerns arose from the start about privacy for workers, efficiency for businesses and even equity for workers who don’t have access to smartphones.

The county’s initial reversal in late May was publicly tied to the employer portion of the app being unavailable on the Apple App Store, a setback that health officials described as temporary. But the county was also under fire from the private sector, which followed with a June 4 letter from a group of prominent local employment attorneys raising legal questions about the app’s use. The letter was addressed to Robinson, Mase and the Board of Supervisors.

“The problem with this order being mandatory is it runs afoul of state employment laws, and employers are caught between two agencies in order to try to comply with everything,” said Santa Rosa attorney Valorie Bader, a spokeswoman for the group.

June 4 2020 Joint Letter re SoCo App.pdf

Bader said neither she nor anyone else with the group had been contacted by the county since sending the letter, but she characterized the county’s decision that it wouldn’t require the app as “kind of an unofficial non-response to our joint letter.”

Others in the private sector openly welcomed news that the mandate was gone.

“For contractors, happy doesn’t begin to describe it ― they’re ecstatic that this isn’t being rammed down their throats,” said Keith Woods, CEO of the North Coast Builders Exchange, a coalition of contractors. “The rollout on this was so poor. The only thing spreading faster than the virus was confusion about this mobile app.”

Tawny Tesconi, executive director of the Sonoma County Farm Bureau, said the app didn’t make sense for the Sonoma County agriculture industry, which she said has been a leader in developing safe ways for employees to work long before reopening began.

“In all honesty, farming is an essential business,” Tesconi said. “We’ve been (focusing on) employee safety for months.”

Woods and Tesconi said not all workers in their respective industries have smartphones, and for Tesconi, many don’t even share the same job site. Some workers who start their day delivering eggs at 2 a.m. would have no supervisor to check health responses in the app, Tesconi said.

Tesconi said Sonoma County Farm Bureau is appreciative of the county rolling back its mandate and said “we’re very satisfied with where it is now.”

Robinson said health officials anticipated some pushback when the app was announced in early May.

“But I can say we’ve also received a lot of support for it and utilization of it as far as I know,” Robinson said. “Employees like it. It says employers are taking measures to keep them safe.”

By Tuesday afternoon, the app had been downloaded 18,622 times, which would represent about 7.4% of the countywide workforce.

Susan Gorin, chair of the Board of Supervisors, said the app was a good idea at the outset. She said was not as critical as fellow supervisors about the project, but she’s satisfied with the county’s new voluntary approach.

“It seemed like a great idea to contract with IBM to develop a self-check app to help our employees and employers understand the risks and evaluate health,” Gorin said. “But it was not quite ready for prime time.”

Woods stressed a common theme that emerged early in the county’s response to the pandemic: a lack of communication with the business community.

“I suppose the health officer and others involved in this were well intentioned, but it did not seem well thought out,” Woods said. “If they had just asked us about whether a mobile app was practical or not, we could have saved them a lot of money.”

You can reach Staff Writer Tyler Silvy at 707-526-8667 or tyler.silvy@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @tylersilvy.