Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[ska invita]

Sunday Times reckons the government are going to try us to get that tracking app :




Ministers have ordered the creation of an NHS mobile phone app the government hopes will help end the coronavirus lockdown.

The app would allow mobile phones to trace users who have come into contact with infected people, alerting them to get tested.

This would make it possible to start lifting the most stringent social-distancing measures from late next month, ministers hope.



Senior sources say NHSX, the health service’s technology arm, has been working on the app with Google and Apple at “breakneck speed”. The system will use Bluetooth technology to alert those who download the app if they have been in close proximity with someone who has tested positive for Covid-19.

Combined with a vast expansion in testing, which ministers claim will hit 100,000 a day by the end of the month, the app is a central plank in the government’s push to lift the lockdown. “We believe this could be important in helping the country return to normality,” a Whitehall source said.



Matt Hancock, the health secretary, is considering how to incentivise people to install the app. Experts say the “track and trace” concept only works effectively if 60% of people adopt it.
One idea under consideration would mean people being told they could resume normal work and home life if they installed it on their phones.

The details emerged as Lord Evans, the former head of MI5, said technology — similar to the kind intelligence chiefs use to track terrorist suspects — is key to combating the coronavirus. But he warned that it was a “severe intrusion into personal privacy”.
The government will forfeit public trust unless it comes clean about what it is planning and imposes time limits on the use of data, Evans writes in The Sunday Times today.
“People may consider the kind of surveillance needed to keep Covid-19 at bay a price worth paying, but public confidence will only be retained in the longer term if the right controls and accountability are in place,” he writes in


_______
I don't want it. If this comes to pass it will be interesting to see if there is pressure from employers never mind government, to use it

 

[brogdale]

Sunday Times reckons the government are going to try us to get that tracking app :




Ministers have ordered the creation of an NHS mobile phone app the government hopes will help end the coronavirus lockdown.

The app would allow mobile phones to trace users who have come into contact with infected people, alerting them to get tested.

This would make it possible to start lifting the most stringent social-distancing measures from late next month, ministers hope.



Senior sources say NHSX, the health service’s technology arm, has been working on the app with Google and Apple at “breakneck speed”. The system will use Bluetooth technology to alert those who download the app if they have been in close proximity with someone who has tested positive for Covid-19.

Combined with a vast expansion in testing, which ministers claim will hit 100,000 a day by the end of the month, the app is a central plank in the government’s push to lift the lockdown. “We believe this could be important in helping the country return to normality,” a Whitehall source said.



Matt Hancock, the health secretary, is considering how to incentivise people to install the app. Experts say the “track and trace” concept only works effectively if 60% of people adopt it.
One idea under consideration would mean people being told they could resume normal work and home life if they installed it on their phones.

The details emerged as Lord Evans, the former head of MI5, said technology — similar to the kind intelligence chiefs use to track terrorist suspects — is key to combating the coronavirus. But he warned that it was a “severe intrusion into personal privacy”.
The government will forfeit public trust unless it comes clean about what it is planning and imposes time limits on the use of data, Evans writes in The Sunday Times today.
“People may consider the kind of surveillance needed to keep Covid-19 at bay a price worth paying, but public confidence will only be retained in the longer term if the right controls and accountability are in place,” he writes in


_______
I don't want it. If this comes to pass it will be interesting to see if there is pressure from employers never mind government, to use it

Fuck that.

 

[ska invita]

I think it's China that has a similar app already?

 

[mauvais]

I write mobile applications for a living. I can't see how that's going to work, either from a technical perspective or a holistic, process one.

 

[purenarcotic]

What do all the people without smartphones do?

 

[brogdale]

What do all the people without smartphones do?

More productive, life enriching stuff?

 

[redsquirrel]

I have sympathy for that approach, assuming it was possible given the differences between the UK and NZ in terms of population size and density, and global movement, and how quickly it got here and spread. But then what about once it's eliminated domestically (assuming it can be)? A permanent 14 day quarantine for new arrivals until a vaccine is there? Ongoing monitoring of these somewhat vague symptoms in the whole population?

And the implementation of an incredibly strict immigration policy.

 

[Chilli.s]

What do all the people without smartphones do?

Probably buy a second phone.

 

[bimble]

I think it's China that has a similar app already?

Think South Korea more similar but not quite the same.
But anyway wouldn’t people just turn off location tracking or even (!) leave phone at home?

 

[existentialist]

Sunday Times reckons the government are going to try us to get that tracking app :




Ministers have ordered the creation of an NHS mobile phone app the government hopes will help end the coronavirus lockdown.

The app would allow mobile phones to trace users who have come into contact with infected people, alerting them to get tested.

This would make it possible to start lifting the most stringent social-distancing measures from late next month, ministers hope.



Senior sources say NHSX, the health service’s technology arm, has been working on the app with Google and Apple at “breakneck speed”. The system will use Bluetooth technology to alert those who download the app if they have been in close proximity with someone who has tested positive for Covid-19.

Combined with a vast expansion in testing, which ministers claim will hit 100,000 a day by the end of the month, the app is a central plank in the government’s push to lift the lockdown. “We believe this could be important in helping the country return to normality,” a Whitehall source said.



Matt Hancock, the health secretary, is considering how to incentivise people to install the app. Experts say the “track and trace” concept only works effectively if 60% of people adopt it.
One idea under consideration would mean people being told they could resume normal work and home life if they installed it on their phones.

The details emerged as Lord Evans, the former head of MI5, said technology — similar to the kind intelligence chiefs use to track terrorist suspects — is key to combating the coronavirus. But he warned that it was a “severe intrusion into personal privacy”.
The government will forfeit public trust unless it comes clean about what it is planning and imposes time limits on the use of data, Evans writes in The Sunday Times today.
“People may consider the kind of surveillance needed to keep Covid-19 at bay a price worth paying, but public confidence will only be retained in the longer term if the right controls and accountability are in place,” he writes in


_______
I don't want it. If this comes to pass it will be interesting to see if there is pressure from employers never mind government, to use it

I won't say, "if it were any other government, I'd sign up", because that's probably not true. But I can safely say that I'd rather eat my own shit than sign up to something like this while the shower of fucking idiots we currently have is in charge. It's not just that I don't trust them - I do trust them.

I trust them to abuse, fuck up, and completely reverse any possible advantages that doing something like this might bring, and I trust them faithfully to cling on to overweening powers long after the need for them has passed, just because.

 

[purenarcotic]

Probably buy a second phone.

And who is giving them the money to do this? The Government?

 

[tommers]

Spoke to my mate in south korea yesterday (and again in about fifteen minutes). He said you just get a text if somebody near to you has tested positive. They close shops that they have been in for two days to clean, then they reopen again. You can get tested if you need to be. He wasn't sure if that was charged or not, or just in some circumstances. He did not seem very bothered about coronavirus to be honest.

He said the background to it is that one of the political parties lost an election due to fucking up the response to SARS and since then they have made sure they are ready for this shit. Apparently the people there dont see the response as a "triumph" or rather they know the reason why it is the way it is. They also have a very different attitude to the state watching their citizens.

 

[tommers]

Oh and everybody wears masks.

 

[little_legs]

Matt Hancock, the health secretary, is considering how to incentivise people to install the app.

App Mancock.

 

[Chilli.s]

And who is giving them the money to do this? The Government?

Yeah as a plan it's got some holes in it. Big holes. My old parents can not even operate the simplest of phones with any consistency.

 

[andysays]

Sunday Times reckons the government are going to try us to get that tracking app :




Ministers have ordered the creation of an NHS mobile phone app the government hopes will help end the coronavirus lockdown.

The app would allow mobile phones to trace users who have come into contact with infected people, alerting them to get tested.

This would make it possible to start lifting the most stringent social-distancing measures from late next month, ministers hope.



Senior sources say NHSX, the health service’s technology arm, has been working on the app with Google and Apple at “breakneck speed”. The system will use Bluetooth technology to alert those who download the app if they have been in close proximity with someone who has tested positive for Covid-19.

Combined with a vast expansion in testing, which ministers claim will hit 100,000 a day by the end of the month, the app is a central plank in the government’s push to lift the lockdown. “We believe this could be important in helping the country return to normality,” a Whitehall source said.



Matt Hancock, the health secretary, is considering how to incentivise people to install the app. Experts say the “track and trace” concept only works effectively if 60% of people adopt it.
One idea under consideration would mean people being told they could resume normal work and home life if they installed it on their phones.

The details emerged as Lord Evans, the former head of MI5, said technology — similar to the kind intelligence chiefs use to track terrorist suspects — is key to combating the coronavirus. But he warned that it was a “severe intrusion into personal privacy”.
The government will forfeit public trust unless it comes clean about what it is planning and imposes time limits on the use of data, Evans writes in The Sunday Times today.
“People may consider the kind of surveillance needed to keep Covid-19 at bay a price worth paying, but public confidence will only be retained in the longer term if the right controls and accountability are in place,” he writes in


_______
I don't want it. If this comes to pass it will be interesting to see if there is pressure from employers never mind government, to use it

Just in practical terms, it's utterly pie in the sky to imagine something like that could work, given the woefully low level of testing. Maybe if far more widespread testing had started a month or so ago, together with earlier moves to practice widespread social distancing etc

And that's before we even get on to the other issues, which probably don't need pointing out to anyone here.

 

[PursuedByBears]

Yeah as a plan it's got some holes in it. Big holes. My old parents can not even operate the simplest of phones with any consistency.

I imagine they don't get released from a tighter version of lockdown then

 

[Cid]

I imagine the advice for older people will be to shield to some extent. As to the rest of the population, they're saying it doesn't require full uptake. 60% is pretty high, but I think smart phone ownership is higher than 80% now. Think about the demographics too - most risk of spread is going to come from people who go to work... Especially commuters on public transport etc. And smartphone ownership in that group is likely also high.

I'm sure it will be totally mismanaged, but don't really have a problem with it in principle. There aren't really many other options.

 

[andysays]

Meanwhile, director of Wellcome Trust saying UK could be worst hit country in Europe, because of lack of testing and tracing

 

[keybored]

I think it's China that has a similar app already?

Singapore uses one.

Singapore to open-source national Coronavirus encounter-tracing app and the Bluetooth research behind it

Team explains privacy preservation plan and how smartphones' wireless prowess is wildly variable

www.theregister.co.uk

I saw a claim on a forum (so take this with a dash of salt) that this app has a quarantine mode for people who have been tested positive or come into contact with those who have; it's used to make sure you stay put for 2 weeks. If your phone doesn't move in the day for a certain time (uses accelerometer) you would get a knock on your door, so no good thinking you could pop out and leave your phone at home.

Harsh penalties for those trying to evade quarantine by sellotaping the phone to their cat.

 

[ska invita]

More productive, life enriching stuff?

Just in practical terms, it's utterly pie in the sky to imagine something like that could work, given the woefully low level of testing. Maybe if far more widespread testing had started a month or so ago, together with earlier moves to practice widespread social distancing etc

And that's before we even get on to the other issues, which probably don't need pointing out to anyone here.

100,000 tests a day asap supposedly.
With all those tests that dont work though isnt it?

 

[Cid]

Meanwhile, director of Wellcome Trust saying UK could be worst hit country in Europe, because of lack of testing and tracing

There is no way testing and tracing will work without something like this. It basically is the tracing element.

 

[Chilli.s]

I imagine they don't get released from a tighter version of lockdown then

Good, I'd prefer them to be at home together, safe. One went out for a walk the other day, they have difficulty following the simplest of instruction.

 

[ska invita]

Not sure how this works if your commute looks like this




Shut down the station for two days of cleaning every time someone infected goes on a train?

 

[bimble]

Good thread here. She’s pointing out that England has more than double the deaths (adjusted for population) than Ireland and that the difference is our late lockdown, Ireland’s schools were closed whilst we were still being told to go to that horse thing.

 

[PD58]

100,000 tests a day is c600 days for the whole population or about a year for 60% - we may have a vaccine by then. Plus govts track record to date re testing/PPE does not inspire any belief this will work.

We probably cannot compare to South Korea but we can to Germany and once again we may have won a war but sure as shit we are losing the peace.

 

[ruffneck23]

Fuck that.

Fuck that , indeed

 

[ska invita]

100,000 tests a day is c600 days for the whole population or about a year for 60% - we may have a vaccine by then. Plus govts track record to date re testing/PPE does not inspire any belief this will work.

Then again who you test and app up means primarily starting with workers of a certain age - that doesn't take as long. But I agree, once this is ready and practicable we'll very likely be in winter flu season.

 

[Cid]

The Korean app was launched on 11th February by the way. I believe from an independent developer (using government data).

 

[Azrael]

Just in practical terms, it's utterly pie in the sky to imagine something like that could work, given the woefully low level of testing. Maybe if far more widespread testing had started a month or so ago, together with earlier moves to practice widespread social distancing etc

And that's before we even get on to the other issues, which probably don't need pointing out to anyone here.

Assume it'll be tied to targeted testing. Hugely encouraging news if true, but will await confirmation.

As for "persuading" people to install it, this is a SARS pandemic, and the alternatives are indefinite house arrest of the entire population or an epidemic leading to deaths in the hundreds of thousands. If the government can try to engineer "herd immunity" at the cost of 250,000-500,000 lives, they're more than capable of mandating contact tracing measures in public, whether it's the app, a GPS tracker, or something else. I detest such measures, but they're less intrusive than the current lockdown, and if I can force myself to support that, same must go for less oppressive alternatives.

As an alternative, I suppose people could agree to hole up in their homes if they want to wait for vaccination. I'd even agree with paying them to do so, as I doubt there'd be many takers!