Coronavirus outbreak

[Rusty Nails]

Neil Ferguson has resigned over breaking the lockdown guidance.

What a bloody idiot. Rules are for the little people.

 

[kingrollo]

Why has mental health and the app not been mentioned.
Having this app on my phone just waiting to buzz with a message telling me I have been near to someone who has tested positive for Covid - isn't going to exactly help my anxiety levels !

 

[kingrollo]

Neil Ferguson has resigned over breaking the lockdown guidance.

What a bloody idiot. Rules are for the little people.

To be fair it sounds like he was having a bit of totty round his flat - fair play to him !

 

[mjr]

Well I'm not particularly tech savvy, but I understand that SAP, the company who did the app that helped get German tourists abroad (for example in New Zealand ) back home have been contracted to develop a suitable app. With that level of expertise it ought not to take long. [...]

You've got SAP? Cool. The UK app is being developed by VMware, according to the BBC. Not a company whose other products inspire confidence in me.

About privacy: if the decentralised model is used, which I think is what ncase, D3PT and must of them are using, then there's not much privacy lost because basically the infection-reporter's ID number(s) get published and other users' apps then decide what action to take based on whether they saw that ID and for how long and how close and so on - unlike the UK design where the central nanny server tracks everyone and decides who to alert.

 

[marinyork]

Yep - my trust is making similar noises. As someone who trains staff in a classroom environment - and currently WFH developing e-learning ! my employment status looks a bit ropey in the new normal !!!

If you are good at this stuff, which I expect you are, I would not worry so much about your employment being ropey. There's a lot of people that don't know how to use this stuff at the moment and a lot of demand.

 

[mjr]

Neil Ferguson has resigned over breaking the lockdown guidance.

What a bloody idiot. Rules are for the little people.

So he's a little person and Boris isn't. Got it.

 

[Rusty Nails]

So he's a little person and Boris isn't. Got it.

Not what I meant at all.

He's an important person in advising the government and should know the rules apply to him as well.

Of course if Boris wants a girlfriend to visit his home he should resign as well. Has he?

 

[marinyork]

Why has mental health and the app not been mentioned.
Having this app on my phone just waiting to buzz with a message telling me I have been near to someone who has tested positive for Covid - isn't going to exactly help my anxiety levels !

Lack of thought. If NHS trusts fundamentally don't understand that unpredictable telephone support from unfamiliar people might be quite problematic for a large chunk of people with mental health problems then such lesser used technologies like contact tracing apps aren't even going to be in their thoughts.

 

[midlife]

Yep - my trust is making similar noises. As someone who trains staff in a classroom environment - and currently WFH developing e-learning ! my employment status looks a bit ropey in the new normal !!!

As far as I am aware the NHS has no plans to change contracts of employment at the moment. Clinics will run slower and Trusts are looking at running 3 sessions and not 2 on a normal clinical day which will likely mean rewriting contracts for some staff.

 

[mjr]

Of course if Boris wants a girlfriend to visit his home he should resign as well. Has he?

No, Boris has not resigned even though he went to his second home in Buckinghamshire and his pregnant girlfriend joined him there, all completely against guidelines. I thought you defended him at the time, but I apologise if not.

 

[midlife]

Why has mental health and the app not been mentioned.
Having this app on my phone just waiting to buzz with a message telling me I have been near to someone who has tested positive for Covid - isn't going to exactly help my anxiety levels !

As far as I am aware the services opening up first are cancer, heart disease and mental health.

 

[tom73]

Even if we all download and use the app it look's like it still won't work.

For the app to work it has to be able to send an ID via buletooth to other devices close by. Even when in the background and not in active use.
Apple IOS wont allow apps to do that google will but not for long. Google will allow you to have it running in the foreground ie an icon on your screen all the time but your battery wont lost long. Apple IOS Unless you you keep the phone unlocked , and screen on all day every day without ever doing anything else on your phone. It won't run in the foreground so is useless.

Apple and google have made it clear they wont allow any tracing app to send IDs in the background.
NHSX say they have thought about it and have a work round.
But the only one that works is your phone has to be near enough to enough phones who have the app running in the foreground all the time.
One on one want work so just how you get critical mass with social distancing is not clear.

As for the data more has become clear.
The random ID the app users is not made by your phone but my the server and downloaded to your phone. So it's easy to work out who's who. If you tell the app you may have covid the app downloads to the server 28 days of information. It's outside GDPR rules you can't ask for it be deleted it's no longer belongs to you in fact NCSC has admitted it won't ever be and may well be used at a later date for "research"

 

[Wobblers]

My attitude is maybe because an old school mate lost his life over the weekend so I'm not overly concerned if 007 is going to find out who I play golf with on a Saturday morning.

I'll not go into the extremely concerning issues over privacy, and how the really rather invasive data that this app will collect will be stored permanently, and for purposes that we're not being told about.

There is another very important issue here: the app won't work. There is a good deal of data indicating that as much as half those infected never develop symptoms - but can still be infectious. This app depends on self reporting - all these people will be missed. Furthermore, most of those infected will have a mild illness, so mild that they don't realise that they've caught CV19. These infectious people will also be missed. Indeed, evidence from China, California and Germany is indicating that 90% of cases are missed by the health authorities. This app will miss almost all CV19 cases. This is worse than useless, because this will instill a false sense of security. People will think that they're safe, because this app is telling that when in fact it's missing most infected people.

An app is no substitute for contact tracing, testing and quarantine for those who are infected. Yet that's exactly what this is being touted as! A contact tracing app of this nature would be of considerable use - if it were backed up by rigorous testing of those who exhibit symptoms, and then rigorous testing of those who've been in close contact (to pick up and quarantine the presymptomatic and asymptomatic cases). But even that does not replace the sheer hard work of conventional contact tracing, only helps it. Unfortunately, we're not doing that. We don't have the testing infrastructure. We don't have the contact tracing infrastructure. We're depending on this app (and on those who're alerted to do the right thing). That will fail, simply because it will inevitably miss most cases.

 

[DaveReading]

There is a good deal of data indicating that as much as half those infected never develop symptoms - but can still be infectious.

Equally, there is data that only 1 in 5 of individuals infected are symptomless, which changes the picture considerably.

I have no idea which figure is correct. Do you ?

 

[lane]

What precisely are the privacy issues with the app and what should I be concerned about exactly. What in practical terms will the government know about me that they don't already or can find out if they are that interested? I know privacy is good and all but in reality makes no difference to me.