Contact tracing, a rant

[groom]

I don't have a smartphone either, but I was trying to imagine what it would be like to have to go into full isolation when there was an 80% chance of it being a false alarm.

I really don't think that is going to happen - see my earlier post. Officials on the IOW said people won't be alerted until the original person has been tested and proved positive.

If the government really wants this to work, perhaps someone needs to invent a small device that works by bluetooth and which could be issued free to everyone. Or we could all be injected with a bluetooth chip. 

[John915]

Good evening,

I listened to this on the radio today as well;

1, you download app which works on a very low level bluetooth.
2, you switch on your bluetooth and the report button. Without doing this it will not work.
3, they do not know where you are from this app.
4, if you show any symptoms you press the report button. Someone will come to your house and test you.
5, if negative no further action is taken, if positive you will be informed of this and be told which phones with this app were near you.
6, you, no one else, will press the inform button which has activated on your phone. This sends a warning to those phones.
7, they will be told by the app to isolate.

Think that was about it, don't think i've missed anything.

John915

[Ruskie]

There will be millions of people reporting symptoms and requesting tests if the app works this way? Who will visit each person in their homes to test them?

I wonder what would happen is someone reported symptoms, tested negative, but in a week or two felt ill again. Would someone be dispatched to their house again with another test kit? We all know there are people who call emergency services unnecessarily, and I can see this being abused or people wanting to be safe rather than sorry even if they only have a sniffle.

I understand that with more cases than we have in Australia, the UK may need their app to work differently, but ours only notifies people who have been close to a confirmed case. We do not have a “report” button on our app. They do not know where we are when we have Bluetooth turned on. We are not told who (or which phones) we have come into contact with. We do not have an “inform” button.

Could the “inform” button be used to panic people intentionally if someone had a mind to do that even if they had not tested positive for the virus?

Interesting to see the different way these apps are working. 

[John915]

Good morning,

The inform buttonn only becomes active to use if you have tested positive so cannot be misused.

John915

[Ruskie]

Good morning,

The inform buttonn only becomes active to use if you have tested positive so cannot be misused.

John915

That makes sense.

[Dundee]

if positive you will be informed of this and be told which phones with this app were near you.
6, you, no one else, will press the inform button which has activated on your phone. This sends a warning to those phones.

This seems highly unlikely and breaches everyone's privacy.  I don't think anyone understands how it actually works and are just giving their own version.

Debra 

[Nanna52]

My understanding is that the app is to make it easier for those who are tracing contacts of positive cases.  Now they have to interview, hope they remember where they were, trace people who may have been nearby in the right time frame.  With the app they can download the information of where the patient has been and correlate those who were nearby. 

[Rishile]

I wonder what would happen is someone reported symptoms, tested negative, but in a week or two felt ill again. Would someone be dispatched to their house again with another test kit? We all know there are people who call emergency services unnecessarily, and I can see this being abused or people wanting to be safe rather than sorry even if they only have a sniffle.

I have said this all along.  Just because someone is tested on Monday and hears later that week that they are negative does not mean that they didn't contract the virus on Tuesday.

Rishile

[pharmaT]

I wonder what would happen is someone reported symptoms, tested negative, but in a week or two felt ill again. Would someone be dispatched to their house again with another test kit? We all know there are people who call emergency services unnecessarily, and I can see this being abused or people wanting to be safe rather than sorry even if they only have a sniffle.

I have said this all along.  Just because someone is tested on Monday and hears later that week that they are negative does not mean that they didn't contract the virus on Tuesday.

Rishile

The early symptoms can just as easily be 100s of other viruses so someone could quite easily have genuine concerns that it may be Covid when it's not and then contract it later.  There's also the chance of a false negative.