The Apple Watch already warns wearers of potentially dangerous heart conditions, sends the wearer recommendations to see a doctor and together with the Health app on the iPhone provides doctors and first responders with amazingly complete medical histories. In some cases unless the wearer responds to the watch/phone prompting the devices will call 911 and the wearer's designated emr=ergency contacts. So why not make a recommendation to seek medical attention for Coronavirus exposure?
Because at the moment, there's nothing a doctor can do for a person who's been exposed other than pass on advice that's already common knowledge. It wouldn't hurt, but it would be redundant, and it would put an additional burden on already overworked doctors.
Is it impossible for some reason for Apple to inject the API into older versions of iOS as a security update, similar to what they do with macOS, in order to reach a wider audience?
Good question! It would appear to depend on several factors...
Thanks.
All good reasons why it's not likely to happen.
Also, factoring in the expected opt-in rate of vintage iOS users would probably tend to make the effort even closer to pointless than it immediately appears to be.
