Governments, academics and tech companies—including giants like Apple, Google and Facebook—are betting that software and smartphones can play a role in the next phase of the response to the coronavirus pandemic. Their efforts may be creating another unwanted condition: confusion. 

In recent weeks, these groups have begun to release or announce a complex, expanding array of tech tools, many of them focused on contact tracing, a tactic public health agencies use to contain the spread of contagious diseases by tracking the individuals infected people have come into contact with. Other tools are designed to help researchers detect potential outbreak locations early.