Covid App

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

The NHS Covid 19 tracing App, is available for donwload this morning.

[polygonum_on_google]

It was available for download yesterday - at least by 23:00.

[Pancho]

I doubt many people will.

It looks a bit like an invitation to be told to self isolate without any strong evidence covid and then it will provide strong evidence for a fine if you don't.

[Jim GM4 DHJ ...]

but I would never use it...and not just because I have a nokia 1100....

[Martin Brown]

I only get offered the NI one when I visit the app store directly.

I can get to the right place by browsing from a PC but not when I try the same thing on my Android phone. The reviewers rate it as risible!

1.6* at present on a fairly large number of dissatisfied reviews.

Direct links

Apple one only has one review at present which gave it 5*.

"World beaten" track and trace app. Generic and unstable.

[Michael Chare]

I agree the new penalties introduced by Boris are counter productive especially as it appears that for many getting a test result quickly is impossible.

[newshound]

My reaction too.

[newshound]

If you are contacted by the telephone system as having a close contact with a confirmed case, will they tell you *when* that contact took place? You really need to know this otherwise you could be isolating for days more than is required by the system. I bet they don't though: do they cite data protection and say isolate for fourteen days from now?

[The Nomad]

s/NHS/Guverment/

It has very little to do with the NHS as far as I can tell, it's all been contracted out to the highest bidder, who is friends with ... or something or other ... <NO CARRIER>

Avpx

[ss]

Wont cant download it. It will create a voluntary lockdown. My understanding is if one gets contacted who then contact 20 others then that 20 contact 20 others who then.............until eventually the entire population has benn contacted to isolate.

I will stick to my normal behaviour, until I feel ill I will just get on with life.

[Martin Brown]

Answering my own question it seems it requires a minimum of Android 6.

If I want to use it I will have to buy a new Android phone. The incredibly bad reviews from early adopters suggest it isn't worth it!

It will work on my wife's iPhone so since we are seldom apart these days with working from home putting it on that will have to do.

[Andy Burns]

If your phone is from 2014, you might have stronger reasons to upgrade...

[alan_m]

The fact that it has been branded NHS means that if it doesn't work too well it will be the NHSs fault.

It was mentioned on the radio this morning that it only helps if there is already an effective working track and trace in place, which from all evidence doesn't apply to the UK. It doesn't replace the existing T&T system nor can it replace the lack of timely testing.

If the latter two don't work the app is very unlikely to make any difference. If used by the "authorities" in the wrong way by isolating too many people who don't end up having the virus it could destroy the credibility of the whole T&T system.

[newshound]

Yup. Off on an IT tangent, this from the Guardian this morning

Not everyone's choice of read, I know, but this article had a certain ring of truth about it. Certainly I have been very happy with my use of the system for car tax, etc.

[Pancho]

I've never worked for government but the idea that IT projects are ruined by entrenched power structures within an organisation rings very true. It is often the politics rather than technology that destroys software projects.

Multiple, arbitrarily conflicting, user "requirements" leading to unnecessary complexity that stifles software development, when much simpler standard IT software could have been developed if independent users were willing to adapt to it, rather than insist that the software was adapted to them.

It was one of the reasons I was hopeful that Dom Cummings might make a difference. Unfortunately being clever enough to understand the problem is not the same as being clever enough to solve the problem.

[Martin Brown]

The only one that bothers me is that its battery is at end of life and there is a chunk missing from the gorilla glass screen. Otherwise it still performs perfectly well as a mobile phone. I almost never browse the internet with it (apart from to find NHS Covid-19 app). I do sometimes use it as a wifi hotspot when no alternative is available.

It could get hacked but if it did then I would have to bin it. I don't do *anything* with it that needs to be remotely secure.

[Bob Eager]

And you aren't checkout 'out' of wherever you checked 'in' until midnight, or you check in somewhere else. Someone has publiched a QR code for the fictional "Specsavers, Barnard Castle"

[polygonum_on_google]

It was intended to highlight the extreme lack of fanfare. It was just slipped out sometime yesterday.

Being available for download this morning is just as true - regardless whether it was available yesterday or not.

[newshound]

You might think that, I couldn't possibly say it :-)

Those bloody users again, we'd be fine if we didn't have to pander to them

I've had the same thought. Also, of course, he isn't trying to solve the same problem.

[Dave Liquorice]

Pretty sure it only alerts primary contacts it does not cascade down through second, third, fourth, etc. If an orgins primary contact reports a postive test then their primary contacts are alerted ie the origins second but only after an orgins primary contact has reported a positive test.

Don't think other members of an alerted primary contacts household have to isolate until that primary contact has symptoms or a positive test.

Big problem at the moment is the apparent lack of avialabilty of slots to get tested within a sensible distance and getting the results back quickly. "Quickly" meaning within 36 hours.

Our nearest testing stations are 20+ miles away. Not sure how those that don't have their own transport are supposed to get to them. Virtually no public transport, not that some one going for a test should be using anyway, as by definition of "going for a test" they are symptomatic...

Is that "old normal" or "new normal" way of life?