Contact tracing, a rant

[Mike in Cumbria]

Yes.

[mazi]

I was not intending to question it’s usefulness, merely the assumption that everyone has a smartphone and lives where there is a signal,  but, just because every 18-39 year old male seemingly walks round with a phone to their ear does not mean we all do it.
A quick check round friends  and family suggests that phones are shared, carried in some else’s pocket cos they won’t fit in a handbag, only switched on when they are needed as the battery is low etc etc etc.

You cannot assume that everyone has a switched on smartphone on their person at all times.

Mike

Added,  false information can be more dangerous than no information

[arthurk]

Lastly what about the person who is positive but has no symptoms, when you find you are positive how can you explain how it happened?

That is not how it works.  When a person with the app tests positive their phone data will show other phone users (who also have the app) that they have come in close contact with and those people will be notified and advised to be tested.

I think what Crumblie is saying (apologies if I'm wrong) is that someone without symptoms will have no reason to get tested, so they won't show up as positive in the database and people that they might have passed it on to won't be notified.

Otherwise, I tend to agree with Mike (mazi)'s reservations about this. If the government want me to use an app on a smartphone, perhaps they'd like to buy me one and pay for whatever contract is needed? Also, the government and NHS's track record on IT projects doesn't exactly inspire a great deal of confidence that this one will work as hoped.

[mazi]

My thinking is that we only notice the chatty sociable people who open up their phone with the latest pics of cat dog grandchildren etc, in any group of a dozen people there are three or four like that and eight or nine who wish the thing had never been invented, they have one some where, and sometimes if they remember, they switch it on.

We don’t all live in London and have busy social lives but the gov. seems to think we all do

Mike

[Crumblie]

Arthurk you are right about what I was saying about people with no symptoms not being tested. The government and the NHS both admit that the true number of positive cases is much higher than those which have been tested. They also admit that there are people who have the virus but are showing no symptoms. At the moment we are finding around 4,000 new positive cases every day despite the country being in lockdown for over a month. That suggests that either people who have the symptoms are not self-isolating or those with no symptoms are passing it on. No amount of contact tracking will help now it is just too late.

[chempat]

Listen to the coronavirus update on now for information.

[Mike in Cumbria]

It’s to be trialled on the Isle of Wight and everybody is to be encouraged to download it.

Please will someone tell our gov. that not everyone has, or can afford, or can use the necessary smartphone and associated unlimited access contract.

Mike

My understanding is that the trial on the IoW is of the whole track and trace system. The app is only one part of the system and I guess one of the outcomes of the trial will be to show how useful or otherwise this technology is.

[Kiltpin]

My concerns are two fold -

1 - I don't like the idea of being tracked. It is nobody's business, except mine and my wife's, where I go and how long I spent there. 

2 - I do not trust the Government to switch off the tracking when this is all over. 

What a useful tool for the police next time a crime is committed, why would they want to give that up? And then how soon will some innocent person be arrested for a crime they did not commit. "You were right on the spot, you must be involved". "The innocent have nothing to fear" has been proved a thousand times to be nothing more than a cruel joke. 

Regards 

Chas

[Guy Etchells]

My concerns are two fold -

1 - I don't like the idea of being tracked. It is nobody's business, except mine and my wife's, where I go and how long I spent there. 

2 - I do not trust the Government to switch off the tracking when this is all over. 

What a useful tool for the police next time a crime is committed, why would they want to give that up? And then how soon will some innocent person be arrested for a crime they did not commit. "You were right on the spot, you must be involved". "The innocent have nothing to fear" has been proved a thousand times to be nothing more than a cruel joke. 

Regards 

Chas

Then your answer is very simple don't download the app, you don't have to.

On the other hand it is an NHS app not a government app and will be treated in the same way as hospital records, the app does not check your location but whether you are in bluetooth range of someone who has recorded he/she has covid-19.

Cheers
Guy