The NHS Covid-19 app is now live in England & Wales

[Redolent]

For iPhones at least, not sure about Android yet.

My postcode is ‘medium risk’ apparently...

Can't get it have a iphone 5 -era phone. So nothing done to fix that issue since it was known about months ago in the Isle of Wight trial?
Government/Dido till not using existing technology readily available then? How much did this non-functional piece of tech cost our country just so we didn't use existing apps but spent an awful lot of money so Dido could oversee a new app?

@RoobyMyrtle

At the community centre I'm a trustee of, we've been told we must display the QR code by law, so people can check in but we're not insisting on it as all our hirers have to collect details of who come to their groups each session and this is more useful info anyway. Venues can't insist on it as not everyone has the right phone. It works on my 4 year old Android model though.

Does this mean I can't enter places due to not having the latest phone but a perfectly good iphone 5? So I have restricted access to society now - so much for our libertarian government.

All restaurants have to do manual contact collecting as well, by law. So no one should be excluded in that sense.

Mine says high but we have 5 cases only....and are not on lockdown?

My area is medium, but according to the BBC postcode checker thing, we're actually below average levels of infection for the whole county. Maybe they are reluctant to say "low" for anywhere!

Medium is the lowest possible warning label in England. Does that make sense?

I've got it, High risk area here (NW)

The nearest non-white area to me on that map is 40 miles away, but my area has 'medium risk'

Oh yes, I think you’re right. That makes a lot of sense.

Hopefully the Bluetooth distance estimating will get better over time. I’d be happy with a false positive rate of around 10%. I think at 50% there’s a risk people will SI the first couple of times, then start ignoring it. Perhaps in practice it will work better than that though.

That comment was supposed to be in reply to:

Don’t you need to enter the test code given to you by the testing centre? So not really open to sabotage?

@LeaveHomeSavePret no ‘they can’t insist on it as everyone doesn’t have the latest phones’ as the poster said.

I have no issue about privacy with the phone per se, it's the proven and inevitable scope creep that will occur.

Here is an app, you can download if you wish -> you must download this app -> if you don't download this app to a phone that can support it, you will be fined -> without the covipass app, you cannot leave you home.

ad infinitum

I was reading yesterday about businesses displaying the QR codes for the app and it said they must also have an alternate way of taking details for those who do not have the app. So it shouldn't be a problem if you can't/don't want to install it.

Medium is the lowest possible warning label in England. Does that make sense?

No, it's part of the same, let's not give accurate information, but spread alarm narrative that is being used, unnecessary anxiety appears to be a deliberate policy.

No, you'll be fine. You'll just need to give your details via another method. Most of our users don't have smart phones.

@Augustbreeze

All restaurants have to do manual contact collecting as well, by law. So no one should be excluded in that sense.

OK, but what if I want the app, to have the same access to information as everyone else? Each human interaction is additional risk, so maybe I don't want to interact with an extra human each time I enter an establishment because the government chose to go with its own sub-functional app rather than using one of the pre-existing perfectly good apps? It is not OK. Especially since this sub-functional app has cost our country billions.

It was explained on the BBC this morning that it isn’t the government which is causing it not to work on the older phones, it is that the technology was not there in older operating systems, something to do with the Bluetooth and there was nothing they could do about it

My hairdressers are on social media this morning saying it's a legal requirement that all customers scan the app before appointments. 🙄 I've messaged them to ask what happens if you don't have a smart phone or have a model that the app doesn't work on?? I had a look at it last night and the battery drain seemed horrendous so uninstalled it again. They've just responded saying they have paper contact tracing on those instances. Not a legal requirement then!

@WhentheDealGoesDown1

It was explained on the BBC this morning that it isn’t the government which is causing it not to work on the older phones, it is that the technology was not there in older operating systems, something to do with the Bluetooth and there was nothing they could do about it

I think the existing apps from Apple and Google do work on slightly older iphones (nb: these are not particularly old phones here) and other countries use these existing apps. There was no need to waste the country's money on a sub-functional app.

So I have restricted access to society now - so much for our libertarian government.
No one has said access will be restricted...even in the post you've quoted.

Is anyone just getting this message when they try to download it?

Mine says high risk.....we have 2/3 cases a day, which I didn’t think was high. It does state that your neighbouring LAs have an impact on risk, hoping that doesn’t have an impact on any lockdown as we’re next to a city that has increasing numbers every day.

I've downloaded it, but wondering at what point does it contact you, does it detect you've been near someone with Covid say for 1 minute therefor are at such small risk of exposure they don't trace you, or 10 minutes where you might need to isolate?

This is clearly the same failed app that was trialled on the Isle of Wight. The same problems exist: it does not work on slightly older iphones and it drains the battery.
Why did the government not save billions of pounds and months of waiting for an effective app, and just use the existing Apple or Google apps?

@LeaveHomeSavePret

This is clearly the same failed app that was trialled on the Isle of Wight. The same problems exist: it does not work on slightly older iphones and it drains the battery. Why did the government not save billions of pounds and months of waiting for an effective app, and just use the existing Apple or Google apps?

I think you're confused @LeaveHomeSavePret.

This app is fundamentally different from the app that was used (and failed) on the Isle of Wight.

Apple nor Google developed an 'app' for contact tracing, they did however jointly develop a set of standards, and implement a framework and interface within both Android and iOS for developers to use to expedite development of bluetooth based tracing.

The initial trialed app did not use this, and quite probably failed as result (and wasted a lot of money, despite the fact every technical minded person seen this coming).

The new app however does use this framework. This is one of the reasons why older devices are not supported, and why certainly on iOS you can't use multiple contact tracing apps in conjunction. A problem for people who live on country borders if nearby countries offer different apps.