In my previous post about Apple Exposure Notification, I wrote about how I was notified by the California Department of Public Health of a possible exposure to COVID-19. I live in Los Angeles, so it made sense for me to receive a notification from the California Department of Public Health. I had suspected that my exposure occurred on a flight from Indianapolis (where I visit often for work) to Los Angeles.
Last week I visited Washington DC for work, and I received a notification to sign up for Exposure Notifications in the DC Health region.
I had previously incorrectly assumed that opting in to Exposure Notifications applied nationwide, but it became clear to me that users must do so for every region. After accepting terms and agreeing to share encrypted data about exposures, I had 2 authorized regions.
It occurred to me that I had already been in DC for 2 days before being prompted to enable Exposure Notification for the DC area. It would have been nice to be prompted shortly after my plane landed in DC. In the future, I will try to remember to authorize exposure notifications ahead of time for the region where I plan to visit. If you plan to do the same, just now that not all states support Exposure Notification.
For a list of states that support Apple Exposure Notification, see the articles by 9to5Mac on 1/16/2021 and APHL (not dated). While mostly in agreement, there are slight discrepancies between the two sources, and I don’t know which one is more current—perhaps they are both slightly inaccurate. To determine with certainty if a region supports Exposure Notification on an iOS device, go to Settings > Exposure Notifications > Active Region > Add Another Region. Then select United States (or another country if traveling internationally) and then select the state or region of interest. It will say, “Exposure Notifications Are Not Currently Available” if the public health authority does not support the Exposure Notification feature.
