This Covid-19 tracking app lets you help scientists study the coronavirus

Covid Symptom Tracker
(Image credit: Covid Symptom Tracker)

If you'd like to feel that you're doing more in the battle against the coronavirus than self-isolating with Animal Crossing, then it's worth checking out the new Covid-19 tracking app aimed at helping scientists track the disease. 

Developed by researchers at King's College London along with Guy's and St Thomas's hospitals, the Covid Symptom Tracker app will apparently help scientists identify high-risk areas and track how fast the virus is spreading. While it's been developed for the UK initially, it will be launching in the US on March 26.

The free app is keen to stress that it doesn't offer health advice, instead giving you the opportunity to do a daily one-minute self-report, even if you're healthy and have no symptoms.

Available for iOS and Android, the app asks you for some basic information like age and postcode, and also whether you have any existing medical conditions like diabetes and asthma. This will apparently also help the researchers discover who is most as risk from coronavirus too.

In the app's sign-up process it says that "no information you share will be used for commercial purposes", although the data will be available to King's College London, Guys and St Thomas' Hospitals and Zoe Global Limited (a health technology company that co-developed the app) and may also be shared with the NHS. 

Covid Symptom Tracker

(Image credit: Future)

A word of warning: in our time with the Covid Symptom Tracker app so far, it's proved quite buggy and it was initially tricky to create an account. 

This may be down to the large number of initial signups – it apparently already has 200,000 users already – so the kinks will hopefully be ironed out soon with an update.

It's also good to see the app join a range of other tech-based projects that have been designed to help with fight against the coronavirus, including Folding@Home (which uses your spare computing horsepower to help scientists) and Google's coronavirus information hub.

To download the Covid Symptom Tracker app, head to these download links for Android and iOS.

Mark Wilson
Senior news editor

Mark is TechRadar's Senior news editor. Having worked in tech journalism for a ludicrous 17 years, Mark is now attempting to break the world record for the number of camera bags hoarded by one person. He was previously Cameras Editor at both TechRadar and Trusted Reviews, Acting editor on Stuff.tv, as well as Features editor and Reviews editor on Stuff magazine. As a freelancer, he's contributed to titles including The Sunday Times, FourFourTwo and Arena. And in a former life, he also won The Daily Telegraph's Young Sportswriter of the Year. But that was before he discovered the strange joys of getting up at 4am for a photo shoot in London's Square Mile. 

Latest in Websites & Apps
Google Maps on a phone being held in someone's hand
Google Maps is getting two key upgrades, for easier route planning and quicker access to Gemini AI
Quordle on a smartphone held in a hand
Quordle hints and answers for Thursday, March 27 (game #1158)
NYT Strands homescreen on a mobile phone screen, on a light blue background
NYT Strands hints and answers for Thursday, March 27 (game #389)
Quordle on a smartphone held in a hand
Quordle hints and answers for Wednesday, March 26 (game #1157)
NYT Strands homescreen on a mobile phone screen, on a light blue background
NYT Strands hints and answers for Wednesday, March 26 (game #388)
Quordle on a smartphone held in a hand
Quordle hints and answers for Tuesday, March 25 (game #1156)
Latest in News
Hisense U8 series TV on wall in living room
Hisense announces 2025 mini-LED TV lineup, with screen sizes up to 100 inches – and a surprising smart TV switch
Nintendo Music teaser art
Nintendo Music expands its library with songs from Kirby and the Forgotten Land and Tetris
An image of Pro-Ject's Flatten it closed and opened
Pro-Ject’s new vinyl flattener will fix any warped LPs you inadvertently buy on Record Store Day
The iPhone 16 Pro on a grey background
iPhone 17 Pro tipped to get 8K video recording – but I want these 3 video features instead
EA Sports F1 25 promotional image featuring drivers Oscar Piastri, Carlos Sainz and Oliver Bearman.
F1 25 has been officially announced, with this year's entry marking a return for Braking Point and a 'significant overhaul' for My Team mode
Garmin clippd integration
Garmin's golf watches just got a big software integration upgrade to help you improve your game