Looking at Mike’s diagram I see it asks you to report if you are diagnosed with CV. The problem here as I see it, is that you are only diagnosed if you are admitted to hospital or if you manage to get tested. There could be a lot of people who get it mildly but aren’t officially diagnosed. However if they pass it on, the next person could be badly affected. So are they going to accept self diagnosis, in which case there could be a lot of false reports judging by how many of those actually tested at the moment are coming back negative.
Even the swab test has a 30% false negative result, if people are clinically positive for covid in terms of symptoms and particularly the distinctive chest x-ray changes medics tend to retest people presenting like this and having an initial negative swab. Having said that I'll stand by what I said, that we need testing to be in place and more efficient for contact tracing as proposed to really work. Staff taking the swabs need effective training as poor technique can lead to a false negative. despite the claims of super labs we still need to increase lab capacity as even when only testing hospital inpatients it can easily take a couple of days. It needs to be easier to access testing, most people who have had the test out in the community have had to drive miles (up to 100mile round trip defeating purpose of cutting down travel), not what you need when unwell. In fact it could discourage people from taking up testing if they're lucky to have a mild case. Look at all those who cannot drive.
Having to have your bluetooth on at all times also reduces the practicality of the app as it drains batteries faster so the phone wouldn't remain on long enough for someone to work a whole shift at work. Lets face it those that are still having to leave the house to work are at statistically higher risk of coming into contact with the virus.
As for damned if we do damned if we don't if we hadn't had some form of lockdown the death rate would be so high because the system wouldn't cope. Many of those who've recovered wouldn't have as they would not have had the treatment they did. We nearly ran out of oxygen as it was, can you imagine if the numbers infected were even high so more requiring oxygen, fewer people to administer, deliver and process the oxygen for medical use as they too were ill. People dying at an even higher rate than they are now of other conditions as there wouldn't be a reduced service but no service at all as there would be literally no one to deliver it. The economy would not have done unscathed with that number of deaths, bereavements and sickness level within the workforce.
