Hanoi leads the country in the number of people installing the Bluezone contact-tracing app with 3.1 million downloads, followed by Ho Chi Minh City with 2.8 million, as of May 24.

Vietnam has nearly 34 million downloads and uses of the Bluezone app. Photo: VGP

According to the latest report conducted by the Authority of Information Technology Application under the Ministry of Information and Communications, the number of active Bluezone accounts in Hanoi is the highest in the country with 1.23 million, accounting for 40% of the city’s total.

Ho Chi Minh City has more than one million active Bluezone users, accounting for 38% of the city’s total. According to the department, Hanoi and HCMC are two localities having the highest number of people downloading this app in the country.

As of May 24, the country has nearly 34 million people downloaded the Bluezone app, marking an increase of more than 2.5 million compared to that of before April 28 when the fourth wave of the Covid-19 pandemic broke out.

The Bluezone app allows smartphones in close range to communicate among them using Bluetooth. The communication data could later be used for tracing contacts of Covid-19 cases, according to the ministry. 

The app can promote its maximum effectiveness in disease prevention and control unless it is used by about 60% of the country’s adult population.

According to the report, localities with the lowest number of people downloading Bluezone are the mountainous provinces of Dien Bien (70,500 downloads), Tuyen Quang (121,000), Yen Bai (130,000).

Hanoi and other localities are continuing to mobilize people to apply technological solutions including electronic medical declaration and installing the app to prevent and control the pandemic.