Actually the app has never had a big enough install base for it to be useful for contact tracing. Our contact tracing is happening the old-fashioned way - by humans phoning each other. This is working pretty well, although there is the curious case of South Australia going into lockdown because they thought you might be able to catch COVID from pizza: https://www.abc.net.au/news/20... Thankfully as new facts to light the South Australian govt is sharing them and correcting course accordingly.

Most authors of IEEE papers already have access to the IEEE database, which somebody (e.g. a university library or research institution) is already paying for. So the funding issue could easily be managed merely by most institutions shifting some funds from the library to the EEE faculty.

The actual amount of money is not the real problem. The real issue, as far as scientific integrity is concerned, is whether this brings up a conflict of interest. I'm sure that can be managed, (peer review is already anonymous) but it is important for them to lay down guidelines about it now, to avoid the conflict of interest from the start.