B.C.’s top doctor says without some changes, Canada’s COVID Alert app wouldn’t help in the province’s fight against COVID-19.

Dr. Bonnie Henry says she would prefer an app that identifies specific times and places when someone may have been exposed to the virus.

“What we really would like to see is an app that we could download when we’re at a celebration or a party or a church service, so that we can identity those specific times when there may have been somebody with COVID who was in that vicinity,” she said on Monday, after announcing 817 cases over the weekend.

“Right now its very non specific and it goes back for 14 days which to us doesn’t make a lot of sense because people are not infectious for 14 days before their test comes back, and I know they’ve committed to addressing some of those issues.”

The federal government’s app lets users anonymously report their positive COVID-19 tests which will then alert people with the app who may have been exposed. It is designed to track the location of phones relative to each other, without collecting personal data.

Right now, Alberta and British Columbia are the only provinces where the app isn’t available, but Henry says negotiations with the federal government are ongoing.

“There are some parameters that they built into the federal app that we don’t feel work and we believe it would cause more concern and frustration as we’ve seen in some other provinces,” she added, noting people in B.C. can still download the app, especially if they’re travelling to other provinces.

“It’s not at the point where it would be helpful for what we are managing here in B.C. for our pandemic right now.”

As of Oct. 22, the federal government says 4,805,411 people have downloaded the app. It is available on both Android or Apple devices.