BERLIN, March 31 (Xinhua) -- The use of mobile phone data for the rapid identification of infected people in Germany was "absolutely expedient from a purely scientific point of view," said Christian Drosten, head of the Institute of Virology at the Charite University Hospital in Berlin on Tuesday.
To contain the spread of the coronavirus, several German politicians have been calling for the voluntary use of a mobile phone app that would sound an alarm if one has been in contact with an infected person.
On Sunday, German Minister of Finance Olaf Scholz told public broadcaster ZDF that "intensive work is currently being done to develop a technical platform that will enable many people to participate voluntarily."
Scholz assumed that "just about everyone" in Germany would use such an app. So far, the German government and the Robert Koch Institute have not published a corresponding app, as it is already being used in South Korea, for example.
"It simply is a very important piece of information that can be generated by recording whether someone has been identified as a case," Drosten said in a daily podcast by German broadcaster NDR.
Such a mobile phone app would be a "supplement and improvement of the situation," stressed Drosten. In addition, the app would also increase the individual sense of security.
Once citizens receive the alert message after being in contact with a person in the "infectious phase," said Drosten, people could make their own considerations in order to avoid further social contacts and to have themselves examined.
"This is of course a micromanagement that is not possible from the outside," added Drosten. The fact that the initiative would then come from individuals or endangered people themselves would "probably have a resounding effect."
Not all citizens would need to use the app, said Drosten. "If a large part of the population takes part, it will have an effect on the entire population and on the flattening of the curve."
"As an open-minded citizen, you do not have to be a virologist for that. I would activate this for me immediately," concluded Drosten.
