Publications

BLEMUR, or Bluetooth Low Energy Model of User Risk, is a model of the probability of alert at a given duration and distance of an index case for a specific configuration of settings for an Exposure Notification (EN) system.The Google-Apple EN framework operates in the duration and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) signal attenuation domains. However, many public health definitions of "exposure" to a disease are based upon the distance between an index case and another person. To bridge the conceptual gap for public health authorities (PHAs) from the familiar distance-and-duration space to the signal attenuation-and-duration space, BLEMUR uses BLE signal attenuation as a proxy for distance between people, albeit an imprecise one. This paper will discuss the EN settings that can be manipulated, the BLE data collected, how data support a model of the relationship between measured attenuation and distance between phones, and how BLEMUR calculates the probability of alert for a distance and duration based on the settings and data.