Track and Trace

[sunglasses123]

So once T&T is up and running and you get a notification that you have been in close contact with someone with CV19. You could be bleeped all the time especially if you are meeting your family which I believe is one of the highest risks and one of them has it Passing someone within 2 metres in a supermarket has little risk.

If for example its the winter and you are due to go on holiday, get married, go to a funeral etc and you are told to isolate then why would some people even get the app if they thought they would be stopped from doing something pre booked/arranged.

I see the younger people even less likely to have the track and trace because even if they had it they are likely to have symptons.

Or do we think its likely that its only with severe cases with a huge viral load given to you that will result in you being asked to self isolate.

I work at home most of the time anyway so this wouldnt be a big issue for me (unless I was about to go on holiday - I suspect your travel insurance would not cover you for this scenario) but for others I can envisage huge concerns going forward.

But I’m not going to decide ahead of time that I won’t talk to contact tracers just because the Tories are fuckers
totally right, it would be cutting off your nose to spite your face
but I totally get why people feel bloody minded and bitter:(

penny, yes I believe the infected person will rat out their friends and pass on confidential email addresses and phone numbers so the friends will get a call either from a scammer or from a genuine track or tracer saying they will lose what can be thousands of pounds by staying at home for 2 weeks whilst their rent remains unpaid and no one is probably buying them any food. I suppose at least they will lose weight.

So does anyone think this is actually going to be herd immunity via the back door?

20 years?

Can anyone explain how that is in any way fair, for data collected under a GDPR waiver for public health emergency, which is meant to be justifiable and proportionate?

Apparently theres no way to know its the Coronovirus track and trace people ringing you
They are expecting the usual scammers to be on this straight away so please be careful
Its said the scammers may say they will send you an email with a form to complete and return to them
So please everyone be careful
Don't click on any links etc

@upthewolves I was concerned about malicious reports of contact too. I have a neighbour who has been falsely telling other neighbours that I have the virus (which has worried my friends because I am in an at risk group) and even putting signs outside my house warning people.
Forcing me to quarantine for 14 days for no reason would be right up his street. But having thought about it, he would only be able to do this if he actually tested positive for covid-19 himself, so there would be limited opportunity for him to cause mischief.

I’d hate to be a contact tracer going by this thread. The abuse they’ll suffer through no fault of their own is not worth it. All this from ‘the caring left’

I agree Xenia.
When Boris was asked about the financial implications at the briefing, he fudged the issue as per. But if you are working, asked to self isolate, in case you might have been infected, many people are taking themselves out of a job that they have just returned to. They might have been furloughed, they might, like me, be one of the lucky ones. I'm a lucky one because I work in a school that has kept me on full pay (not a lot, I'm a T.A.) because I work at home most of the week, and do a lot of work with vulnerable kids, so safeguarding etc. And I go into work once a week. More in a couple of weeks. But, my Trust won't be thrilled if I then go off, for 14 days, to self isolate. Meaning my bubble of kids will be disrupted by having another staff lead (goes against guidance), puts kids and the staff member at more risk.
Others, who have less job security, will be even more worried - 14 days based on a "you might have it", equals no money. Boris can say they are wrapping their arms around the people affected, but the reality is that 1 in 4 companies currently on furlough are saying they can't afford to make up the difference for much longer.

And, 20 years? That's why I posted the link. Why? What's that all about?

So does anyone think this is actually going to be herd immunity via the back door?

That seems to be what all the people who aren't going to engage with contact tracing want.

Contact tracing means a few people quarantine at a time, thus trying to slow the spread.

I don't understand what the anti-tracers have in mind for an alternative exit strategy? Anyone want to explain their plan if they were prime minister? (Plan from now on, not what you would have done in January.)

There are people on here saying that if they come into direct contact with someone who tests positive the next day, that they WON'T quarantine themselves - do they not understand that means they could just carry on spreading it? Surely that's the herd immunity strategy right there.

Since the tracked contacts are not offered a test unless symptomatic I shall decline participation as far as possible. I will not download the app. I will not hand over contact details of friends nor, I hope, will they mine.

As soon as contacts will be tested and only have to wait until the result and are then free to move if negative, I shall participate fully and willingly.

So you want a test which shows you are incubating the virus, instead of one which shows you currently have it?

From today's briefing:

Changes need to be cautious as rate of infection still 'significant', says Vallance
Vallance says the most recent ONS figures suggest:

The proportion of people in the last couple of weeks with Covid-19 is 0.24% – somewhere in the order of 130,000 people have Covid infection, he says.

The number of new infections is estimated to be roughly 1 in 1,000 per week, he says.

This means 54,000 new cases are estimated to be occurring every week – that is not a low number, he stresses.

There is still a significant burden of infection, there are still new infections every day at quite a significant rate, and the R is close to 1, he says.

That means there isn’t a lot of room to do things and things to need to be done cautiously and monitored, and the test and trace system needs to be effective, he says.

An estimated 6.78% of people have had Covid-19, he says.

Key bit: "the test and trace system needs to be effective"

That word: effective.

Is it? Has it been rushed to meet Boris' 1st June road map date?

If so, that's wrong. Too much of a gamble.
If not, why all the problems? Why hasn't it been used earlier to iron out the problems "there will be some bumps on the road" said Hancock. So, roll it out earlier, get the bumps ironed out, then relax measures.

I'm not anti-trace and track, when it's effective.
Before then, no, too many questions.

I would want a test to see if I have the virus, yes, and independent of symptoms. Otherwise we would lock a lot of people in unnecessarily. A bus full of people in self-isolation when the alternative would be test everyone and isolate the few who indeed got infected. This may well happen repeatedly to the same person. I will not volunteer for this. I would of course stay at home if I had the virus, for which we happen to have a test.

Are they not testing the close contacts?

In Ireland all close contacts are tested immediately and at the end of 14 days if the original test was negative.

I am all for track and trace if it is track, trace and test. Once that is the case, I do the app or wear a bracelet or whatever.

Track, trace and please stay home whether you have it or not will hugely decrease compliance.

Naturally, if contacted I would have to comply, but I will not proactively offer this by having the app or offering my details to anyone who does not need them.

No, if I understood it right only symptomatic contacts will be tested.

So a lot of people will be going back into lockdown with no need to be.

@Inniu
No, only if you develop symptoms.
And if you are asked to isolate, because you've been in contact with a positive, the rest of your household can carry on as normal.

I don't get that either!

Vallance says (above) that 54,000 new cases are estimated to be occurring every week.

Dido Harding, chair of NHS track and trace, told MPs in a conference call that a fully integrated contract tracing system able to handle 10,000 cases a day (so 70,000 cases a week if it works full throttle 7 days a week) would not be up and running until the end of June, a month after the initial launch. And that's if that date doesn't slide again, as other dates have.

So it isn't going to be effective for at least a month, if not longer.

I would want a test to see if I have the virus, yes, and independent of symptoms.

So you want a perfect test that doesn't exist. Are you working on such a thing? What's your strategy for us all until this is developed?

@Chersfrozenface
Exactly.

A whole month of relaxed restrictions before Dido says it will be fully effective.
Scary isn't it?

I do not want a test that does not exist, @AtiaoftheJulii. If you are infectious, you will test positive, symptoms or not.

It is not magic. On the contrary, it is really simple and every postgraduate student or postdoc in any biomedical field can do this. The reason our testing capacity is so embarrassingly low is we decided in the UK that all testing needs to be centrally controlled.

PCR machines have stood idle in thousands of labs since March. A lot of Europe and the world has done exactly that, get university labs and private companies testing. I have friends who volunteered for this in other countries, because they allowed and encouraged it.

What I don't get is it is the exact same virus affecting every county across the world so why is every country implementing their own version of track and trace. Why is there not a universal system that all countries use therefore everyone is singing off the same hymn sheet, especially given how global and interwoven our existence is in tems of overseas travel, tourism etc etc.

I didn’t realise how poor the system the U.K. is setting up is.

In Ireland we have been doing T&T since the beginning. Lots of teething difficulties in the beginning but now most people go from being referred for a test, tested, results, track and trace complete in less than 2.5 days.

You do have to self isolate for 14 days if you are a close contact even if you test negative though.

I agree, @pennylan83. We have rushed this in the UK. Well, we haven't, but we have been so amazingly slow coming up with testing capacity that we cannot do what would be best practice here. So we have to invent our own system, which is not test and just sort of hope it will be ok.

I do not want a test that does not exist, @AtiaoftheJulii. If you are infectious, you will test positive, symptoms or not.

This is wrong. You can test negative up until you show symptoms. You can be infectious, but the test shows you are positive when you have symptoms. Not before. Chris Whitty was at pains to explain this today at the briefing. Watch it, if unclear.