# A Multidimensional Analysis of Released COVID-19 Location-Based Mobile Applications
## 6 Discussion  
Most of the released COVID-19 LBMAs are Health Status. This might indicate that during the Coronavirus pandemic, the remote diagnosis was the most useful service regarding those apps. These numbers may also be increased since each country revealed its own Health Status app as an assistance tool for preliminary remote self-diagnosis of COVID-19. The Preserving Contact Tracing and COVID-19 Spread Mapping services might not have been developed for each country as the previous category but keep a high number as users need to trace possible infections near their environment.  
Most COVID-19 LBMAs utilize location tracking technologies for their offering services in all four service categories of our study. Specifically, Health Status and Preserving Contact Tracing Service categories utilize GPS and Cellular Network mainly for their services. Proximity Tracing technologies are utilized mostly on the Preserving Contact Tracing  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c} \hline \hline
**Mobile Service** & **B2C** & **G2C** & **B2B** & **C2C** & **Sum** \\ \hline Health Status & 37 & 41 & - & 1 & 79 \\ Preserving Contact Tracing & 14 & 24 & 1 & 7 & 46 \\ COVID-19 Spread Mapping & 18 & 3 & - & 2 & 23 \\ COVID-19 Geosocial Media & 2 & 2 & - & - & 4 \\ Health Status and & 1 & 4 & - & - & 5 \\ Preserving Contact Tracing & & & & & \\ Health Status and & 3 & - & - & - & 3 \\ COVID-19 Spread Mapping & 75 & 74 & 1 & 10 & 160 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table}
Table 4: Targeting of LBMAs.  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c} \hline \hline
**Mobile** & **M-Commerce** & **Creator/Manager** & **Country** & **Technology** & **User** \\ \hline
4 & Health Status & G2C & Government and & China- & GPS & Patients and non-patients \\
31 & Health Status & G2C & Autonomous Region of & Region of & Patients and \\  & & Sardinia & Sardinia & - & non-patients \\
65 & Health Status & G2C & Ministry of Health and & South Korea & - & Patients and \\
116 & Preserving & G2C & Local Start-up & China-Hong & GPS & Travelers \\  & & & China Electronics & & & \\  & Health Status/ & Technology Group & & & \\
153 & Preserving & G2C & Corporation and & China & - & Patients and \\  & & & government & & & non-patients \\  & & & departments & & & \\
154 & Health Status/Preserving & G2C & TNeGA & India & GPS & Travelers \\  & & & & & & \\  & & & & & \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table}
Table 5: Mandatory COVID-19 apps.  
category where Bluetooth is utilized for the functionalities of these apps. Therefore, the technologies utilized in each app may be different depending on the service category that each app belongs.  
For Societal and Business aspects an almost equal amount of LBMAs is governed by businesses/organizations and government/public authorities, indicating the significance of fighting COVID-19 by utilization of such means for both the private and public sector. Although the focus of BGAs is apart from Health Status mainly COVID-19 Spread Mapping, the focus of P.G.A.s is apart from Health Status, mainly Preserving Contact Tracing. To this end, it is essential to understand the potential in combining the efforts of both private and public organizations by providing pooled resources to develop reliable and targeted solutions.  
We also witness a limited number of COVID-19 LBMAs targeting businesses. However, the need to develop better services that will allow them to normalize their business such as in-store contact tracing, support the Health Status of employees, and more, is essential to restore the economy to normality with safety.  
Most of the mandatory COVID-19 LBMAs are based in Asia where the legal environment and the users' privacy protocols are different from the rest of the world. The strictest legal environment seems to be in Asia countries. Specifically, many of them originate from China where the rest of them from India, South Korea, and the Region of Sardinia. The remaining apps--shown in the Appendix--are being used voluntarily by mobile users worldwide.