To think test and trace will never work?

[PurplePIG1]

It seems like a massive waste of money. No one I know has ever downloaded the app, Ive heard of people writing wrong details if asked because they don't want to isolate. Complete disinterest.

I feel like the government will never succeed in this exercise, it seems pointless unless everyone is willing to use it. Maybe I'm unusual, I just dont know anyone doing it and I can't imagine they will change their minds over six months into this.

I don't have the app... But don't really go anywhere the app would be useful. School run... Out of car for less than five minutes, outside, staying away from people. Supermarket... Mask on, not lingering anywhere. Occasional other shop, the same. One cafe, honestly filled in details, were near no one but own group. Swimming lessons... Masks, spread out, everyone registered.

If I was using public transport, or going to pubs etc, I would download. But my phone is rubbish, barely supports apps it does have.

T&T can only help if people are honest.

I don’t think it helped when the government announced that the police would be able to have access to data in certain cases, we were told dats wouldn’t be stored.

I work for the NHS, and the test and trace system is a disaster, it tells those who work in health care and schools to constantly be off as it cannot filter properly. It has been accused of selling data to third parties and for a long period gave misinformation, was logging incorrect time frames for someone visited a shop, restaurant ect. It just won't work in the current format.

I haven’t downloaded it and I don’t know any one who has
Same here - no intention of being a hostage to scaremongering or isolating for two weeks even after a negative test (which is now the rule -not allowed into school even you are contacted and have a test which proves negative - utterly bonkers.

Where I live (in Europe) the t&t was a distinct failure. It took over a week for us to be contacted after our friend got it, and our app never ever notified us of being in contact with a confirmed case. So it seems the contact tracing was all done manually (ie person with confirmed case spoke to someone who wrote down all the phone numbers of everyone they’d been with, then phoned round as many as poss - deffo not everyone as we had friends who were never contacted).

And numerous reports that the system was overwhelmed- this was in Sept when numbers were low. Our numbers have since skyrocketed so god knows how it’s working now.

Now we have a QR system where you have to do your QR to be allowed inside any cafe/restaurant/bar. Not sure this is any better tbh.

So it’s not just the UK, it’s a mess everywhere.

Personally I think repeated rapid wide scale testing is the way forward. Plus, unfortunately whilst I know there are devastating impacts from another partial lockdown, stopping people moving around and mingling is, at least on the face of it, the only other strategy.

With less than 11% of people notified by Test &Trace to isolate actually bothering to do so, I think the OP is correct, it will never work.

I tested positive yesterday and have not had any contact from test and trace. I don’t understand why I haven’t had an automated text or email getting me to input data about whereabouts that could be analysed. I could have put everything in by now.

The app is only, and can only ever be, one part of a functional test and trace system. At the moment, it's not functional and problems with reliability and concerns about data sharing don't help.

Even if everyone was using the app, manual contact tracing would still be important, and I think this is where we are really failing as a country. For various reasons, we're struggling to communicate the need to isolate to people, and a lot of people seem to not fully understand the advice that they are given by test and trace. Some of this may be 'not wanting to understand' but I think there us genuine confusion about eg the role of schools.

I think a strong public information campaign about why self isolating is important and when to isolate might have really helped.

But then the app and the system in general need to actually work.

@Susanwouldntlikeit

I haven’t downloaded it and I don’t know any one who has Same here - no intention of being a hostage to scaremongering or isolating for two weeks even after a negative test (which is now the rule -not allowed into school even you are contacted and have a test which proves negative - utterly bonkers.

That is correct if you are a contact of a positive case you have to isolate for two weeks. Having a negative test in that circumstance is irrelevant as you could test negative every day for 13 days and then be positive on day 14.

Negative tests are only applicable to those who have had symptoms themselves, not contacts of cases.

I haven't downloaded it but keep a distance from everyone. In cafes I use the paper version. I don't like having apps and having my phone on all the time.

I haven't downloaded it. I can't use it at work and I don't do anything else other than walk the school run so there's no point

@Pixxie7

I don’t think it helped when the government announced that the police would be able to have access to data in certain cases, we were told dats wouldn’t be stored.

I think you're confusing the app with the actual track and trace contacting people system.

You don't legally have to isolate if the app tells you to but you do if a person from T & T tells you to. That's where the police could become involved.

The level of understanding of the situation really needs some work

I haven’t downloaded it. My phone’s out of storage, and somehow isn’t releasing storage capacity when I remove data from it. I’m not forking out for a new one with the economy the way it is and my income has been reduced.

But test and trace is different to the app? I haven’t downloaded the app because it looks like an expensive gimmick to me with a possibility of high failure. We have a system of actual people doing track and trace. I give my details if I go anywhere like a cafe. Whats the point of the app? To tell you if you've been in Lidl with someone with Covid? Doesn’t mean anything.

Would help iff the app actually worked.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/news.sky.com/story/amp/coronavirus-nhs-covid-app-failed-to-record-potential-exposures-due-to-error-12120910

Sadly, I agree with you.

@Ghosts2020

I work for the NHS, and the test and trace system is a disaster, it tells those who work in health care and schools to constantly be off as it cannot filter properly. It has been accused of selling data to third parties and for a long period gave misinformation, was logging incorrect time frames for someone visited a shop, restaurant ect. It just won't work in the current format.

Unfortunately it remains useless with incorrect timeframes. It literally cannot link up household occupants.

In our family alone it has led to approx 25 text messages giving repetitive msgs and other conflicting messages. Giving dates to isolate which keep people home two days longer then the law requires (but we've been scared to break this as can't afford a fine and them not accepting our challenge), it then told the original person in the household who caught covid that they had to isolate for a further 14 days when someone else in the home caught it (from them). Even the track and trace person admitted this is a fault with the system and said to ignore it

It asked how the second person caught it, yet none of the questions gave the option of "from someone I live with and am isolating with" so now the government figures will suggest they picked it up whilst out exercising or something

Then the children in the house are listed on T&T as separate identities and they use the parents phone to literally ring for each separate child to discuss lengthy repetitive drivel, repeating the stuff they've already gone through for the adult on a separate call. If you don't answer the call (because you have covid and feel like death warmed up) then don't worry, they'll just ring you constantly from 8am to 7pm and leave answerphone messages until you answer each and every call. If you ask them to delete your number because you feel harassed, they don't.

I accumulated in excess of 30 calls (and answerphone messages) over a few days because I was too ill to answer.

I have honestly been taken aback with how awful the system is.

Are you talking about the whole system or just the app? Because the number of the population who don't have a smartphone capable of downloading and running it, don't always take said smartphone out with them or aren't tech savvy enough to be able to work a smartphone means you're inevitably excluding millions.

In terms of the whole system itself, it's not going to work when public trust in the government has been eroded, when we know how many fuck ups there have been already and when there are people who are simply not in a practical position to isolate because they can't afford it. Some of these problems might be more easily fixed than the issue of app access and use.

Dh is a hospital doctor and has not downloaded the app and none of his colleagues have either. They have absolutely no faith in it and not many of them trust this Government anyway.

I think we were far too late in implementing T&T - other countries had the technology far earlier and we should just have bought it from them. Some countries enforce quarantine with GPS bracelets and have much lower incidence.

I don’t have the app but will write my details down when entering cafes/restaurants etc. I have no faith in the app to be accurate so won’t use it.
If someone gives my details as a contact and T&T contacts me then of course I will isolate. I would also think about it it was necessary to isolate even if T&T hadn’t contacted me and someone I’d been in close contact with tested positive.

But as for the app, nope. My sister has been getting pings on it to say she may have been in contact with someone and then messages to say no we’ve assessed it and it’s fine.

But recently she has been in close contact with someone (for a massage) the day before they had symptoms and tested positive. Not a single notification from the app or track and trace! She has isolated anyway as she’s a teacher so not worth the risk of potentially closing a large bubble at school if she goes in

I've got the app but don't like having my Bluetooth on all the time, we've also been told to not have it on at work, problem is I keep forgetting to turn my Bluetooth back on when I go somewhere....

I dont have the app but it wouldn’t be useful for me really because I don’t go anywhere where I’m placed in close proximity to others for a long time. I walk past people quickly on the school run or when we visit a NT/EH site at the weekend but that doesn’t count as a close contact. If I was a pub goer I’d be more inclined to have it but it just isn’t a necessity for me really.

Let's see what happens with the fast tests. We could be testing schools and hospitals every week, at least in high incidence areas. And then other work places too.
I cannot bear the idiots that go around giving wrong details

It’s not working because people don’t trust this government. They don’t trust that the app works because its development and implementation was handed to the wife of a government minister with no experience in track and trace and who royally ballsed up her last job when she was in charge of data, and they don’t trust that the government won’t do something underhand with their information. And by government I mean Dominic Cummings who, by his actions, completely undermined any residual trust we had, along with the subsequent orchestrated obsequious support from ministers who should have known better. As a result the TaT has no face validity or credibility and has given a free pass to people who think they should be allowed to do what they want, regardless of the consequences.

I agree. A lack of trust in the government is a big part of why we're where we are now. That and the way it's been politicised with each side trying to use it as a point scoring exercise against the other. There's not enough of the "we're all in this together, let's sort it out together" attitude both in parliament and in society as a whole.