BERLIN (dpa-AFX) - The makers of the official federal Corona Warning App (CWA) have released a new version of the application. With version 3.0, in the future the results of self-made quick tests can also be recorded without an official confirmation. This means that a call to the verification hotline is no longer necessary. As a result, operation of the verification hotline will be discontinued at the end of January, the project team comprising the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), Deutsche Telekom and SAP announced in a blog entry.

Previously, an official positive rapid or PCR test was required in the application for a warning to be issued via the Corona warning app. With version 3.0, warnings are now also possible after a positive self-test. Users with a positive test result can thus trigger an alert through the CWA itself without first having to request a transaction number from the verification hotline. This procedure applies both to positive results of PCR tests and rapid antigen tests officially initiated in testing centers that were not transmitted to the CWA via a digital pathway, and to positive results of so-called point-of-care PCR tests (rapid PCR tests) and self-tests.

The testing and alert concept had been facilitated as a result of the expected further pandemic progression. To prevent mass misuse of the self-warning function, positive self-tests can be entered only once every three months. Otherwise, the app's core functions - risk identification and risk warning - would not change.

The CWA had been developed in the summer of 2020 to curb coronavirus infection rates. The CWA anonymously registers people who have been within two meters or less of each other for an extended period of time as at-risk contacts.

The app has had more than 48 million downloads since 2020. It is not known on how many smartphones it is still active. According to information from December 2022, the contracts for the operators of the CWA have so far been extended until the end of May 2023. This will incur a further 23 million euros. Since the introduction of the CWA in June 2020, the app has already cost more than 220 million euros, the Ministry of Health told the daily newspaper "Welt."/chd/DP/stw