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Isle of Wight trial of NHS phone app could help track COVID-19 infections
https://news.sky.com/story/explainer-isle-of-wight-trial-of-nhs-phone-app-could-help-track-covid-19-infections-11982717
As the Isle of Wight prepares to trial a phone app that will track COVID-19 infections, we answer some of the main questions.
How does it work?
The app uses a phone's bluetooth technology to register contact when people come within 6ft of one another for at least 15 minutes.
If a user develops symptoms of COVID-19, they inform the NHS and an alert is sent to other users they have come in contact with.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps told Sky News the app would be "a fantastic way to ensure that we are really able to keep a lid on this going forward and we don't get that second wave" of COVID-19 infections.
When does the trial start?
Mr Shapps has said the trial will start this week.
What benefits could there be for the island and other areas that trial the app?
It has previously been suggested that areas trialling the contact-tracing app could also have coronavirus lockdown measures eased earlier, in an experiment to see how the UK could do the same.
Why has the Isle of Wight been chosen?
A small island is a good place for such a trial and also for an early easing of lockdown measures - any infections can be more easily traced among the smaller population, and new infections can be more easily kept out. These things would be much more difficult in a place such as Birmingham, for example.
What about the rest of the country?
Mr Shapps told Sky's Sophy Ridge on Sunday programme: "Later in the month, that app will be rolled out and deployed - assuming the tests are successful, of course - to the population at large."
He added that 50% to 60% of the population would need to use the app for it to be effective.
What about privacy?
The transport secretary said the app would be "completely confidential" and the identity of those a person came in contact with would not be revealed.
Users will remain anonymous up to the point where they volunteer their own details. They will be asked to hand over some personal details such as a partial postcode, age and gender, but others won't receive this information.
What else will be done?
The government has promised to employ 18,000 contact-tracers by the middle of May, as it pursues the "test, track and trace" strategy it hopes will see the country leave lockdown safety.
Mr Shapps could not say how many of the contact-tracers had already been recruited, but vowed people would be "in place" when the app was ready for UK-wide use.
"As you've seen, people are more than willing to come forward and be incredibly public-spirited when it comes to defeating this as a nation," he added.
He also suggested, in future, those arriving in the UK would be required to download the app as part of stricter rules at airports.
What are the potential problems?
Labour's shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds told Sophy Ridge on Sunday: "There has to be a strategy for how we can ensure there is a very large take-up of this app, I think it's obvious that we should need to do that."
However, asked if Britons should be compelled to download the app in future, Mr Thomas-Symonds warned: "Not everybody has a smartphone in the first place to which you could download the app.
"What is the government's strategy in relation to that? Secondly, there are also issues around privacy and security.
"There are people for whom location services on their mobile devices are turned off for particular safety reasons and keeping themselves safe."
https://news.sky.com/story/explainer-isle-of-wight-trial-of-nhs-phone-app-could-help-track-covid-19-infections-11982717
As the Isle of Wight prepares to trial a phone app that will track COVID-19 infections, we answer some of the main questions.
How does it work?
The app uses a phone's bluetooth technology to register contact when people come within 6ft of one another for at least 15 minutes.
If a user develops symptoms of COVID-19, they inform the NHS and an alert is sent to other users they have come in contact with.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps told Sky News the app would be "a fantastic way to ensure that we are really able to keep a lid on this going forward and we don't get that second wave" of COVID-19 infections.
When does the trial start?
Mr Shapps has said the trial will start this week.
What benefits could there be for the island and other areas that trial the app?
It has previously been suggested that areas trialling the contact-tracing app could also have coronavirus lockdown measures eased earlier, in an experiment to see how the UK could do the same.
Why has the Isle of Wight been chosen?
A small island is a good place for such a trial and also for an early easing of lockdown measures - any infections can be more easily traced among the smaller population, and new infections can be more easily kept out. These things would be much more difficult in a place such as Birmingham, for example.
What about the rest of the country?
Mr Shapps told Sky's Sophy Ridge on Sunday programme: "Later in the month, that app will be rolled out and deployed - assuming the tests are successful, of course - to the population at large."
He added that 50% to 60% of the population would need to use the app for it to be effective.
What about privacy?
The transport secretary said the app would be "completely confidential" and the identity of those a person came in contact with would not be revealed.
Users will remain anonymous up to the point where they volunteer their own details. They will be asked to hand over some personal details such as a partial postcode, age and gender, but others won't receive this information.
What else will be done?
The government has promised to employ 18,000 contact-tracers by the middle of May, as it pursues the "test, track and trace" strategy it hopes will see the country leave lockdown safety.
Mr Shapps could not say how many of the contact-tracers had already been recruited, but vowed people would be "in place" when the app was ready for UK-wide use.
"As you've seen, people are more than willing to come forward and be incredibly public-spirited when it comes to defeating this as a nation," he added.
He also suggested, in future, those arriving in the UK would be required to download the app as part of stricter rules at airports.
What are the potential problems?
Labour's shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds told Sophy Ridge on Sunday: "There has to be a strategy for how we can ensure there is a very large take-up of this app, I think it's obvious that we should need to do that."
However, asked if Britons should be compelled to download the app in future, Mr Thomas-Symonds warned: "Not everybody has a smartphone in the first place to which you could download the app.
"What is the government's strategy in relation to that? Secondly, there are also issues around privacy and security.
"There are people for whom location services on their mobile devices are turned off for particular safety reasons and keeping themselves safe."
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The Isle of Wight has an estimated population of 142k spread over 148 square miles.
There have been 127 reported cases of COVID-19 and 28 reported deaths.
There have been 127 reported cases of COVID-19 and 28 reported deaths.
Doesn't David Icke live there? Maybe another agenda to start with that location?
trialing a new sun tan lotion in Manchester next week
more importantly full of old people with limited smart phones
will authorities close isle of wight international airport ?
The Times has more details about plans for that contact tracing app – about which more is expected to be announced by the health secretary at this evening’s press conference.
The paper reports that researchers at Oxford University have set up a model in computer code, which simulates a city of 1 million people – all behaving as we do in normal times, using public transport, seeing friends and family – in order to track how the app would work.
Early tests have been a success and the next stage is to roll the app out to residents on the Isle of Wight, where eight out of 10 people with smartphones need to download it in order for the trial to be effective. If this stage of the trial is a success it will be introduced across the rest of the country in weeks.
The app uses bluetooth to record everybody you come in close contact with. The data it gathers will stay on your phone until you notify the app that you have symptoms, at which point it will be uploaded to a central server and people who need to self-isolate will be alerted.
At least 15,000 staff will be needed to arrange testing for those with symptoms. In a separate report, the Times says that this work will be outsourced to private call centre operators including Serco. Staff will be given about a day of training before starting work.
The Times reports that there is disagreement in government about how much data the app should gather. The app used in South Korea, for example, records real time location data, so that authorities can see where there are clusters of infections. There are no plans for the UK app to do this.
The paper says:
[The] essential dilemma is this: The more intrusive the app is - the more information it gathers and relays to a central database - the more useful it will be in tracking localised outbreaks and guiding the ‘human’ tracing work.
Yet at the same time the more intrusive it is the less people are likely to download it and unless it has significant take up it is more of a gimmick than a genuinely useful tool.
The paper reports that researchers at Oxford University have set up a model in computer code, which simulates a city of 1 million people – all behaving as we do in normal times, using public transport, seeing friends and family – in order to track how the app would work.
Early tests have been a success and the next stage is to roll the app out to residents on the Isle of Wight, where eight out of 10 people with smartphones need to download it in order for the trial to be effective. If this stage of the trial is a success it will be introduced across the rest of the country in weeks.
The app uses bluetooth to record everybody you come in close contact with. The data it gathers will stay on your phone until you notify the app that you have symptoms, at which point it will be uploaded to a central server and people who need to self-isolate will be alerted.
At least 15,000 staff will be needed to arrange testing for those with symptoms. In a separate report, the Times says that this work will be outsourced to private call centre operators including Serco. Staff will be given about a day of training before starting work.
The Times reports that there is disagreement in government about how much data the app should gather. The app used in South Korea, for example, records real time location data, so that authorities can see where there are clusters of infections. There are no plans for the UK app to do this.
The paper says:
[The] essential dilemma is this: The more intrusive the app is - the more information it gathers and relays to a central database - the more useful it will be in tracking localised outbreaks and guiding the ‘human’ tracing work.
Yet at the same time the more intrusive it is the less people are likely to download it and unless it has significant take up it is more of a gimmick than a genuinely useful tool.
PRESENTER ON SKY JUST SAID ISLE OF wight is representative of the rest of the uk,is he taking the pish, 
if the so called 300,000 most vulnerable essential workers had used this app last week instead of getting tested,95% of any tracing would have been wasted on negative tests,ivolving passing on information,message to possibly millions of people on the back of negative results. theres gpoing to be 100,s,1000,s of people in IOW texting in saying they've got symptons when if the experience of testing is repeated over 95% of them wont have it,sending off 1000,s of false rabbits everywhere
by telling everyone at the start 80% of the population will get ,everyone now thinks any sympton and they've got it , still waiting for tv to show one person coughing at a testing centre, the supposedly no 1 symptom for the virus along with 39/40 degree temp,you don't get in a car for 2/3 hrs with 40 degree temp
by telling everyone at the start 80% of the population will get ,everyone now thinks any sympton and they've got it , still waiting for tv to show one person coughing at a testing centre, the supposedly no 1 symptom for the virus along with 39/40 degree temp,you don't get in a car for 2/3 hrs with 40 degree temp
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