Contacted by test and trace

[treening]

Question on behalf of a friend who had an alert on her test and trace app telling her she has been in contact with someone with covid and needs to isolate. But the app says for 6 days, surely this isn't long enough?!

Anyone else been told they need to isolate for less than 10 days?

Ah I see, that makes more sense thank you.

The problem with the app is that it's just a very blunt instrument.
It doesn't know if you are wearing PPE. It doesn't know if you have left your phone in a locker next to someone's else's phone, it doesn't know if you are on the other side of a wall from the person who tested positive and never came in to contact, it just tells you that your phone has been in Bluetooth contact with the phone of someone who has tested positive.

I've turned my Bluetooth tracking off. If I leave my phone in my glove box, and someone stands too close to my car for too long, I could end up getting an alert to isolate, even though I've never even been near that person.

That's why a lot of companies suggest turning it off at work - if you are following covid secure measures and wearing PPE, your phone does not know that and could still register a contact (which track and trace would not).

I had a message to say isolate for 9 days on Thursday. I didn’t actually get a notification but the message was on the app when I opened it to check in somewhere.
So clever people when is it likely I came into contact with the person? I’m trying to figure out where!

@MilkItTilITurnItIntoCheese I only know on the iPhone but you can see what date/time roughly you had a key match in. It’s in the actual phone setting under exposure notifications.

You can work out which days to check by your notification details (track and trace look at the previous two days before symptoms starting or a positive test).

Mine told me I had to isolate for 5 days. You have to isolate for 10 clear days. This meant my exposure to someone who has tested positive was 6 days ago.

It may not be illegal not to, and yes the app isn’t perfect so it meant I could have been walking around asymptomatic for 6 days but there’s no question that I’m not going to isolate for the remaining days.

Why would I risk infecting others when I’ve just been told I could have it??

@Cornettoninja I have an iPhone and I can see that my phone has been scanning 5-6 times a day but I can’t see where it would tell me when I came into contact with someone who tested positive. As it said 9 days does that mean I came into contact with them the day before or could it have been several days before that - allowing the other person to develop symptoms and then get a positive test result and log it on their app?

I’m isolating anyway but I would like a bit more clarity on how it works so that I could have vague idea how long since I was in contact or perhaps work out where I went that day.
Anyone got any idea??

Of course she should isolate for the period the app says. The reason that it won't usually be the full 10 days is that the isolation period begins the day after the last contact, but in reality a positive case won't usually be known about by that point. If you have contact with someone on a Monday evening who develops symptoms Wednesday afternoon and books a test for Thursday it is likely to be Friday evening or Saturday before the positive test comes back and contacts can be asked to isolate.

[quote MilkItTilITurnItIntoCheese]@Cornettoninja I have an iPhone and I can see that my phone has been scanning 5-6 times a day but I can’t see where it would tell me when I came into contact with someone who tested positive. As it said 9 days does that mean I came into contact with them the day before or could it have been several days before that - allowing the other person to develop symptoms and then get a positive test result and log it on their app?

I’m isolating anyway but I would like a bit more clarity on how it works so that I could have vague idea how long since I was in contact or perhaps work out where I went that day.
Anyone got any idea??[/quote]
Yes. After "exposure checks" there's a list of dates. Press a date and it gives "matched key count" and a number. The number is the number of people your phone has been near in the past two weeks who have gone on to test positive AND log it with the app. So there might be others who have not. And they might have been in contact with you very briefly in a shop etc, not necessarily passed you anything

If it’s nine days I would presume it’s working off the test date so a day has been missed off to account for the day of the test being day one (this presumes the person got a test immediately). You would check the exposure checks files for a key match for Thursday and Friday.

I haven’t had an alert but DP has (terrible timing) and he said that the app was clear it was a contact on Thursday so that’s what he checked. We have a vague idea of where he was at the approximate time.

DS got one today saying to isolate for 2 days.

We are guessing that means he came into contact on Friday 11th, i.e. 9 days before today.

Could it be the person he was in contact with’s test result was only loaded up last night?

Possibly @chewbecca. There are still reports of some people having to wait a long time for results or there’s a possibility they’ve had to re-do one after an inconclusive result.

Ok so looking at those numbers up until 16/12 the app had logged 0 or 1 against every time stamp. The very last one at 10pm logged 2. So somewhere between 6pm and 10pm on Wednesday I must’ve come into contact with a second case. Is that right?

Interestingly my phone has no further logged checks since then and I was out and about on Thursday as I didn’t see the isolation alert until about 8pm.
Apparently then having contact with 1 person was ok and didn’t trigger the alert but 2 people did.
Does all that sound right? I’m so confused by it!

Just feels like 10 days isn't enough really. If she came into contact on Tuesday and got infected I thought symptoms could take up to 14 days to show? So coming out of isolation on Saturday feels too soon?

Wait or is it that I didn’t come into contact with them on Wednesday - I could’ve come into contact with them at any point in the last 2 weeks - but they logged their positive result on Wednesday?

I would presume the same as you @MilkItTilITurnItIntoCheese, I don’t really know much more about the key matches though.

@treening - it used to be 14 days but was changed partly because the majority of people start displaying symptoms within the first 5-6 days and partly because people are more likely to stick to 10 days isolation. Whoever does the maths on this stuff has worked out that this should work for the majority.

There have been reports of traceable cases seemingly incubating for up to 20 odd days but those appear to be a very small minority.

@MilkItTilITurnItIntoCheese

Wait or is it that I didn’t come into contact with them on Wednesday - I could’ve come into contact with them at any point in the last 2 weeks - but they logged their positive result on Wednesday?

I shouldn’t think so. The app is only interested in contacts 48 hours before symptoms started. The date of the test/symptoms starting is part of the information the user should put in.

If someone put that information in retrospectively your alert would be for significantly less days if any.

Thanks @Cornettoninja

@firesong is this definitely correct re the 'matched key count'? For example on Friday I didn't leave the flat, just me and my husband at home and at each check that day (there were 4) it says 1. My husband definitely hasn't been tested nor had symptoms. Are you sure it doesn't just mean there's someone in the vicinity who's app is also scanning? Nearly all my day's/times show at least 1 (apart from the occasional one which works out I would of been driving to work alone) which show 0.
I hope this doesn't read that I'm saying you're wrong, just looking for clarity for better understanding... I didn't even know I could access this info before!

[quote sausageface]@firesong is this definitely correct re the 'matched key count'? For example on Friday I didn't leave the flat, just me and my husband at home and at each check that day (there were 4) it says 1. My husband definitely hasn't been tested nor had symptoms. Are you sure it doesn't just mean there's someone in the vicinity who's app is also scanning? Nearly all my day's/times show at least 1 (apart from the occasional one which works out I would of been driving to work alone) which show 0.
I hope this doesn't read that I'm saying you're wrong, just looking for clarity for better understanding... I didn't even know I could access this info before! [/quote]
It's not real-time. It doesn't mean that it matched you with someone that moment. The person you'd been near recently had likely updated their Covid app with their positive test on that day rather than you were with the person that day. Hope that makes sense!

[quote sausageface]@firesong is this definitely correct re the 'matched key count'? For example on Friday I didn't leave the flat, just me and my husband at home and at each check that day (there were 4) it says 1. My husband definitely hasn't been tested nor had symptoms. Are you sure it doesn't just mean there's someone in the vicinity who's app is also scanning? Nearly all my day's/times show at least 1 (apart from the occasional one which works out I would of been driving to work alone) which show 0.
I hope this doesn't read that I'm saying you're wrong, just looking for clarity for better understanding... I didn't even know I could access this info before! [/quote]
Oh, and the "1" is one over TWO WEEKS to that day. So in the two weeks it's one person rather than that you've been around a person a day with it!

They probably took ages to contact her.
DD had a notification from school that she needed to isolate but is was only for 7 days and this was before self isolation period was reduced to 10 days. No wonder its spreading like wildfire

@firesong thanks so much for this, that makes a lot more sense now. I was interpreting it wrong!

@TrustTheGeneGenie

I think legally you don't have to isolate if the app tells you to whereas you legally do have to if they ring you

This was my understanding

The call from test and trace triggers a legal obligation to SI. The notification from the app does not.