The contact-tracing app, accuracy?

Also my personal phone doesn’t stay with me all day as I have a work one that won’t have the app on as its not deemed safe by IT so my own phone won’t have an accurate picture of my movements either

Err… use the app when not at work, don’t use it at work. Or am I missing something?

Edit: big switch in the app so you can turn it off when you get to the hospital [which will have all its own arrangements and controls] …

I wonder if I am going to be banned from entering places without it

App aside, it’s hard to imagine “having a modern smartphone” as being a requirement to enter buildings. Not least when people are required to visibly wear masks and they are, on their chins, without challenge.

Also my personal phone doesn’t stay with me all day as I have a work one that won’t have the app on as its not deemed safe by IT so my own phone won’t have an accurate picture of my movements either

Jeez dude. Maybe you’re a corner case and it isn’t for you, or the land liners, or the ICU workers, or the tinfoil hatters, but for the majority of people I expect it’s fit for purpose, and will probably need some tweaks along the way. As Qatar correspondent said at least you have a choice. Tenner says your IT team will be taking a look at it from a security and risk perspective and will be keen to permit it for those that want it on work phones.

App aside, it’s hard to imagine “having a modern smartphone” as being a requirement to enter buildings. Not least when people are required to visibly wear masks and they are, on their chins, without challenge.

The problem with the current implementation is it seems like someone has gone yep lets make it an app and its limited their thinking. Singapore have developed a wearable for people without smartphones which is a good solution. If they extended how they can implement this app it really could become a thing you need to get in and out of buildings.

will probably need some tweaks along the way.

100% I can’t remember the last time an initial launch didnt get hammered down to an MVP. Work wise I would love to be a product designer on this product.

The issue that still hasn’t been addressed is accuracy. If the app can’t know whether the other phone is the other side of a wall/floor it will produce inaccurate information.

The issue that still hasn’t been addressed is accuracy. If the app can’t know whether the other phone is the other side of a wall/floor it will produce inaccurate information.

I guess this is something we might not know. But as the product and tech gets better its accuracy will improve. The way I see it is its better than nothing and we are in a world of marginal gains. Its just another think they can use to help stop this thing.

@Cougar It wasn’t the concept of having a modern phone that I was raising. From earlier in this thread;

Nostrils; Mandatory in my gym to have the NHS app installed and scan the QR code before every session. This despite already having individual key fobs and a booking system.

Me; I wonder if I am going to be banned from entering places without it, as per the previous posters comment about the Gym.

If I was going to be a snowflake, I might raise the issue of my phone being modern in my eyes, shame it is not classed as modern in yours 😉

I’m genuinely not sure who is misunderstanding whom here. If you don’t have a modern smartphone, you ipso facto cannot have the NHS app installed.

I got an excited message from a mate of mine a couple of weeks ago, he’s got a new phone and it can send SMSes in lower case. He’s going to fare well at his gym.

@Cougar

My comment was based around the fact that people may be bared from going into a building because they don’t have a phone modern enough to get the necessary App. Nostrils post suggested that not having the App would prevent you getting into his Gym

In all fairness I don’t ‘have’ a Gym and don’t want to go to one, so I don’t have an issue so far 😉

But what happens if my local corner shop decides to do the same 🙁

My comment was based around the fact that people may be bared from going into a building because they don’t have a phone modern enough to get the necessary App. Nostrils post suggested that not having the App would prevent you getting into his Gym

And my point was, isn’t that the same thing? If you choose not to install the app, or are unable to install the app, the net result is still that you don’t have the app. I had to do a bit of googling but I think my mum’s mobile phone is a Nokia 6301, she’s not got much use for the gym but should that mean she can’t go into ASDA?

Some people are still writing cheques. My mum gave me one a few weeks ago to cover the shopping I was doing for her. Technology isn’t the solution for everyone.

Some people are still writing cheques. My mum gave me one a few weeks ago to cover the shopping I was doing for her. Technology isn’t the solution for everyone.

Are you actually my secret brother?

Technology isn’t the solution for everyone.

I think we are arguing the same point, just from a different angle.

And my mum gave me a cheque last month 😀

Does it actually matter how it’s implemented? Unless there’s a wholesale change in people’s views then they’ll not get near the critical mass required to make it work. It’s now just a box ticking exercise so that the press can stop asking ‘wheres the app?’.

Those businesses that choose to make it mandatory will do so for as long as it takes for their revenues to drop off, then drop that policy.

Thanks Dom.

So lockdown restrictions were introduced and there was a vocal minority who were desperately trying to justify why it shouldn’t apply to them.

Now the app is released, and we seem to have a vocal minority trying to justify why it shouldn’t apply to them.

If you can, then download it and use it. It might help save the life of a loved one.

If you can, then download it and use it. It might help save the life of a loved one.

Perfectly put. Downloading and using it if you are able to has zero downsides but plenty of potential upside.

Anyone else having Bluetooth issues while the app is running? My phone (Galaxy S10) can usually connect to 2 different Bluetooth devices at the same time with no issues but since installing the NHS app last night it won’t connect to anything unless I turn the NHS app off. Really annoying when I use it for music in my car, as a radio connected to a separate speaker at home and in the works van to play music and as a satnav.

Switch it off, all works fine. Switch it back on and all other Bluetooth connections cut out and can’t be re-connected.

same here, albeit only tried in the car this am.

No issue here (as of yet!) but I’m using an iPhone so potentially an Android problem(?)

Only used BT headphones so far however since installing.

No BT problems here… using headphones and speakers fine (iPhone).

I think we are arguing the same point, just from a different angle.

That’s what I was trying to say.

Er, oh.

I think I read somewhere but I don’t remember where so I’m not swearing to it – establishments will retain the facility for people to leave details using pen and paper in the event that they are not able or willing to use the app for some reason.

It’s their choice though… isn’t it. Plenty of places now only taking payments via phone or contactless card at the moment… they simply won’t serve you for cash or cheque… these times aren’t normal, and alienating some potential customers/users is small fry compared to getting closed down.

Tuesday AM: Work colleague has child sent home from school with typical cold symptoms which are now obviously covid symptoms too. Wife leaves her job (teacher) to collect him and other child and my colleague leaves our workplace to protect me and customers. Wife spends several hours trying to book a test and eventually succeeds, drives an hour or so to get it and tests herself and 2 children as second is now also coughing away.

Friday PM: I’ve been at work all week on my own running around like a blue arsed fly, the school where my colleagues wife teaches has been down a teacher and 2 children have missed 4 days of school.

No result yet.

Its a circus

I’ll download the flippin app when there is a testing system up and running. Right now its only function will be to cause even more needless slowdown.

I’ll download the flippin app when there is a testing system up and running. Right now its only function will be to cause even more needless slowdown.

not really, it’ll still tell you if you’ve been in contact with someone with confirmed covid even if you’re wife’s test hasn’t come back yet

Agree with that, testing is absolutley crucial to using the app. They need to sort their sht out!

We’ll do our bit, install the app, GOV need to sort their end and get testing sorted asap.

No… the ‘slowdown’ is needed I’m afraid (even if the government aren’t offering the required support people will need because of it)… the testing is now WAY behind the spread, which is why we need more people isolating if they’ve been working or living with someone with symptoms. The “test our way back to education/work” plan has utterly failed… forget it… it’s not happening for a good while, and we need to stop the spread now. Use the app. Be prepared for more people isolating, including yourself. It’s not going to be easy.

Perfectly put. Downloading and using it if you are able to has zero downsides but plenty of potential upside.

The downside is you may have to quarantine for 2 weeks, either correctly or through a false positive. Losing a couple of weeks wages is a big deal for most people.

Yes, it is, which is why the government needs to step up and make sure no one loses a couple of weeks wages. But without these periods of isolation, the country is going to be in a very expensive mess at the end of the year. If people don’t isolate… or only isolate when a positive test has been obtained when we all know now that testing is way behind actual infections, we will be in a world of pain trying to put the genie back in the bottle.

“The downside is you may have to quarantine for 2 weeks, either correctly or through a false positive. Losing a couple of weeks wages is a big deal for most people.”

yes, but more than that its also putting businesses under intollerable strain

“No… the ‘slowdown’ is needed I’m afraid”

Funny, I’m not hearing that from many businesses I speak to.

Huge swathes of the economy are taking collateral damage, not from the virus but directly as a result of its mismanagement. I’m absolutely furious that idiots like Dido Harding actually have the gall to stand up and say that they wern’t expecting this level of demand for tests, whilst Hancock was telling us its our fault as there were too many people asking for tests who didn’t need them.

Literally EVERYBODY was expecting the need for testing to expand hugely as the schools went back. **** the lot of them.

I can’t disagree with a word of that.

I think Winston has it the nail firmly on the head. It’s just failed gimmick after failed gimmick rather than any semblance of a plan or strategy.

I’m not going to download it as I think it will spend its whole time giving false positives. I work in a hospital so am temperature checked every time I enter the building. Patients who I don’t interact with pass within 2 metres of me all day everyday but there is a wall between us that the app won’t know about and we now have to wear masks

I read the T&C’s/Privacy blurb when installing this morning (2nd install as the first wanted a trial code)

I’m sure it said:
If you are wearing medical grade PPE in a medical setting, behind a permanent screen such as at a till, or leave your phone in a work/gym locker, you should pause the app to avoid false positives.

I think it also said that checking in simply gives the app the ability to warn you if the premises subsequently becomes high risk at the time of your visit…you should still leave your contact details with the premises, whether by pen and paper or their own QR code etc.

Edit: and it said if the app tells you to isolate, you then get negative test, you still need to isolate until the app gives you the all clear, due to the incubation period.

Yes, it is, which is why the government needs to step up and make sure no one loses a couple of weeks wages.

Where does the money come from for all this?

I won’t be installing this app.

Where does the money come from for all this?

Not supporting people to isolate, so they don’t, will result in a full lockdown, and huge economic damage. But hey, we know that already, we’ve seen it once allready, but some people want to believe otherwise. If the government doesn’t put the money in the right places now, its tax take is about to take another dive.

It’s hard not to agree with all of the comments here regarding the testing failure and all the other failures the government is responsible for regarding this virus.

That said it’s also really depressing to see a kind of “they have f***** up so bad, the app is pointless so why should I bother with it?” kind of thought process going on.

It just leads me to think that we are heading into a terrible Winter. The government’s utterly criminal incompetence shouldn’t give us a reason, as individuals, to just amplify their mess. There’s just no excusing that. If we try we are just as bad as those bastards.

I despise this government, utterly despise it but I’ll be damned if I’ll spite myself and others just to prove a point in my head.

We are just heading into a self fulfilling prophesy otherwise.

despise this government, utterly despise it but I’ll be damned if I’ll spite myself and others just to prove a point in my head.

If the head of the fish is rotten, it doesn’t matter how hard the fins work, that fish is still going to finish floating along, belly up, with a stomach full of stinking gas.

I won’t be installing this app.

Run through your logic for me?

If you are infected and asymptomatic, you’d rather not know, even if that meant you then infected many others and they went on to be ill or die?

Come on, use the app and isolate if required. Any government would be giving you this tool (most would have provided it far sooner, but hey), just get on and use it, please. Don’t use Dom and his donkeys to excuse us each not doing our own bit too help keep others safe.

Well said poop.

Oap, doing this in spite of what the **** at the top are doing is appropriate.

Edit and Kelvin +1

Say what now?

Hi Damian,

If your test took place in a Public Health England lab or NHS hospital, or as part of national surveillance testing conducted by the Office for National Statistics, test results cannot currently be linked with the app whether they’re positive or negative.

Thanks.

— NHS COVID-19 app (@NHSCOVID19app) September 25, 2020