How does the COVID app decide how many days you need to isolate for?

[TableNiner]

I can’t work it out, in terms of what calculation(s) it’s doing to determine this, can anyone explain?

It's 10 full days after you come into contact with a positive case. Think there are some slight differences though, so here's the link with all the info - faq.covid19.nhs.uk/article/KA-01144/en-us?parentid=CAT-01038&rootid=

I'm not an expert but as you have to isolate for 10 days after contact with the positive person it adds 10 days onto the date that you had that contact and deducts the number that have already passed. So a maximum of 10 but probably less allowing for the time to take the test get the result

Do you have children at school? School isolation work in the same way

@JennyWreny Thanks for the link. So you can calculate your encounter day. So if I was pinged for 7 days today (Tuesday), it means the contact would have been on Saturday? Or if it was 8 days, it would mean the contact was Sunday?

I’d assume 10 days must be quite unusual in that case as there wouldnt necessarily be time to turn round the symptoms/test/sharing, is 7-8 days perhaps more common?

I dont have the app but from what I've read you don't need to work anything out, it tells you when the contact was

The app has a bit to tell you when contact was

10 days since the point of contact. You only get pinged once the contact tests positive though. So say it takes six days for them to get symptoms, test and get the positive result, you get pinged on day six. Thus only having to isolate for four days until day ten.

If you go into other data it tells you the encounter date..

Wildewood that doesnt sound right as you are only a contact for 48h before the person tests positive and after obviously.

As PP have said, you can check your “encounter” date by looking in Settings and then Other Data. It could be a lot less than 10 days though. For example if someone’s PCR result comes back inconclusive and they have to retake it. One of DDs friends got a notification to isolate for 3 days!

My isolation period was only 5 days because it took into account the period between encounter and positive test... Worrying because you can be transmitting the virus and not know it

@HSHorror

Wildewood that doesnt sound right as you are only a contact for 48h before the person tests positive and after obviously.

The six days I mention is allowing for a long time to get results on top of the 48 hours. Sorry I should have made that clearer!

Results are taking days for many at the minute. Ive been waiting since last week for child’s results.

The encounter date is day zero, then it’s ten full days after that. As above, you can check the date within the app.
You can then look in your exposure checks in your phone settings and see all the times your app communicated with others that day which, if you know where you were, can narrow it down a bit.

Banani does it go back exactly 48h from the symptoms date and ping those contacts?

Go into settings and Other data and it tells you Encounter Date !