WASHINGTON – The global rush to halt the coronavirus led countries like Australia and South Korea to launch smartphone apps to track its spread — using the technology as a key part of their push to tamp down the pandemic and restart their economies. But in the U.S., with varying opinions on what data these apps should record, the federal government has so far failed to institute concrete privacy standards. Apple and Google sought to fill the void by asserting their own standards, flexing the power they hold over the software on almost all smartphones. The result is a nationwide hodgepodge that has U.S. states struggling to take advantage of what sounded like promising digital tools to determine who has been exposed to the coronavirus.

Some Americans will have multiple apps to choose from. Others will have none at all. And the level of adoption experts say is needed for these apps to make a meaningful difference — about 60 percent of the population — is looking all but impossible to hit.

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