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Comment by camillomiller | Hacker News Reader

Corona Warn App is the most successful implementation of a Covid tracing app in Europe. Italy's Immuni was good as well, but unfortunately politics and demented policies basically mangled one of the best pieces of Public Administration software my country had ever produced. In this regard, I can't be anything but satisfied that the Germans are taking the lead on a EU-wide policy. Also, I got vaccinated here in Berlin and since a week I already have a perfectly usable digital pass that I validated at the chemist's counter. For one, to be honest, let's give all the kudos to those who deserve them.

Side note: we're so generous that I hear of Americans here in Berlin who are getting the pass too by showing their American vaccination documents and a proof of residence in Germany. Meaning: the system is solid, but surprisingly flexible.

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The danish version is called "Smittestop", which roughly translates to "Stop the infection".

It has cost 4.3M euros and have detected 76.115 people, which amounts to 420 DKK or 56 euros per person.

To me that sounds quite expensive and not like a success.

Link in Danish:

https://jyllands-posten.dk/indland/ECE13057409/sundhedsminis...

How do decide what is cheap bs expensive for early detection? Sure it “sounds” expensive but it would be cheaper if there were more detections, which you don’t really want.

So you want to translate this into how much infections it _prevented_ and then compare it against the cost of a COVID-19 infection for society.

I don’t have the numbers but my gut feeling says that 56€ is a bargain.

Perhaps it is, but keep in mind that the official count of infected is around 300.000, so 25% of that was detected by the app.

If the number of infections that were not detected are double the 300.000, then we are fast approaching 10% of all infections detected.

But anyway Denmark spend 60 times the budget for the app on testing each month in 2021, so it's pennies the app has cost.

But i still think it worthwhile to know what the taxpayers get for their money.

> So you want to translate this into how much infections it _prevented_ and then compare it against the cost of a COVID-19 infection for society.

By that logic, we should start selling hand sanitizer for 100 euros, and soap for 50 euros, right?

Obviously the idea that something should not be evaluated by how efficiently was produced but solely by how much it was needed is a recipe for absolute disaster and cost bloat. Seat belts will go for 10,000 euros in that world.

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