Hancock's half hour anyone?

[DonPeffers]

today Conservative supporting Daily Mail headline----"Matt Hancock's testing fiasco deepens as officials admit up to 350,000 home Covid-19 kits have NOT been returned - meaning a FIFTH of swabs 'carried out' have yet to be analysed".

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8347479/Britain-abandoned-coronavirus-testing-March-outbreak-BIG.html

 

"Hundreds of thousands of coronavirus home-testing kits sent out have been counted but never returned to labs, Public Health England's testing boss today admitted.

Professor John Newton, director of health improvement at PHE, could only say today that 'more than half' of home tests had been completed and posted back.

The Government claims 719,000 tests have been delivered for people to take swabs themselves but a significant chunk of these may never have been done.

The posted home-testing kits form a huge section of the 3.2million coronavirus tests the Department of Health claims to have carried out."

 

Also it seems that the covid contact tracing app. for NHS will work in Northern Ireland BUT isn't compatible with the one used in The Republic of Ireland so those crossing the border might pass infection but apps won't respond or recognise there has been a contact.

 

 

Oops.

[Arm]

Putting aside the claims of completed tests which does sound incorrect. Around 350000 people who wanted and screamed for the tests have not done them despite having the kit. Am I reading that correctly ?

[corsechris]

Here’s one for you to ponder Don.

 

 

Cheer up buddy, it can’t be that bad.

[DonPeffers]

"Why don't you get back into bed?" lyric.

 

I just might.

[DonPeffers]

today  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-52995881   Coronavirus: Ministers consider NHS contact-tracing app rethink.

 

"Concerns about the risks of deploying a go-it-alone UK coronavirus contact-tracing app are causing further delays.

A second version of the smartphone software was due to have begun testing on the Isle of Wight on Tuesday, but the government decided to postpone the trial.

Ministers are considering switching the app over to tech developed by Apple and Google.

But countries testing that model are experiencing issues of their own.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock had originally said the NHS Covid-19 app was to be launched across England - and possibly other parts of the UK - by 1 June."

 

A viable tracing app. would be a great tool to have but this seems incompetent now. What did S. Korea use?

 

[Kingster]

50 minutes ago, DonPeffers said:

What did S. Korea use?

 

...A lot of personal data infringement!

The director of the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Jeong Eun-kyeong, acknowledged that the site infringes on civil liberties, saying: "It is true that public interests tend to be emphasized more than human rights of individuals when dealing with diseases that can infect others."

[DonPeffers]

Yes Chris I do recall that now.

 

Our proposed NHS tracing app. with data stored on a central server might not be a lot better but in S. Korea things went a lot further regarding virtually publicly identifying the individuals required to be traced.

 

The trade off was only 276 deaths from covid-19.

[DonPeffers]

Today  https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-contract-tracing-app-uk-nhs-a9571461.html  Coronavirus: NHS contact-tracing app may not be ready until winter, health minister admits.

 

"The much-anticipated smartphone app to trace contacts of Covid sufferers may not be ready for national rollout until the winter and “isn’t a priority”, a health minister has told MPs.

Lord Bethell, the minister responsible for the NHSX app, claimed the delay was caused in part by a fear of “freaking out” the public by using technological means to tell them they might be ill, but also admitted that the system had faced “technical challenges”.

The app, currently being piloted in the Isle of Wight, was slated to play a central role in the government’s test and trace system to track down contacts and ask them to self-isolate, with its UK-launch initially pencilled for the end of May".

 

Currently a call-centre operator will phone up a suspected covid contact and ask them to remember who they have been in contact with. With the economy to open up more there will be more contacts including on public transport and in public places where someone won't necessarily know the other persons details, whereas the phone app. would overcome that.

 

With the R rate still near one in many areas I hope a viable app. can be up and running nationally soon.

[Alan France]

 

On 24/05/2020 at 12:35, DonPeffers said:

"Matt Hancock's testing fiasco deepens as officials admit up to 350,000 home Covid-19 kits have NOT been returned - meaning a FIFTH of swabs 'carried out' have yet to be analysed"...

The Government claims 719,000 tests have been delivered for people to take swabs themselves but a significant chunk of these may never have been done.

 

350,000 not returned out of 719,000, sounds like that could do with a fact check.

[Blatman]

I was musing on this story and noted previously they compared "our" way of doing it with a centralised system compared to Germany which has phones "talk" to other phones.

And then it hit me... would the German app work here in the UK? If it does, why don't we just "borrow" it, given that it doesn't require a central system.

And then I thought, why would it be blocked from working across borders? Surely German citizens over here for work or whatever could gain some comfort from knowing their tracing app worked even when abroad.

I've either stumbled on something that is absolutely genius, or I'm mad as a spoon. Scott, no need to comment...  

[Kingster]

2 hours ago, Blatman said:

would the German app work here in the UK? If it does, why don't we just "borrow" it, given that it doesn't require a central system

Which is basically what we are doing. The German app is based on the Apple-Google one.

 

UK virus-tracing app switches to Apple-Google model https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-53095336

[DonPeffers]

The move from NHSX app to a Google/Apple app was announced at yesterday's Downing Street briefing https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-53095336

 

"The Google-Apple system in a way is home-grown: originating with research at a large consortium of universities led by Switzerland and including UCL in the UK."

He ( Dr Michael Veale from the DP3T group, which promotes the decentralised model) added that developers should be able to adapt code already being used by Germany and Switzerland if required.

If Baroness Harding decides the Apple-Google tech is never good enough to roll out, then another alternative might be a system based on wearable tech."

[Blatman]

4 hours ago, DonPeffers said:

then another alternative might be a system based on wearable tech."

 

Dumbest idea yet... unless they're going to fork over Apple or Android watches for free...

[DonPeffers]

"Singapore recently ordered 300,000 dongles to test as an alternative. Rather than uploading data over the internet, users will physically hand them over if they test positive for the virus, allowing recent contacts to be flagged."  is from the BBC article but doesn't say who pays for the tech. Taxpayer?

[Blatman]

50 minutes ago, DonPeffers said:

"Singapore recently ordered 300,000 dongles to test as an alternative. Rather than uploading data over the internet, users will physically hand them over if they test positive for the virus, allowing recent contacts to be flagged."  is from the BBC article but doesn't say who pays for the tech. Taxpayer?

 

So having been around people and tested positive these folks are going to go anf find all these people, meet up AGAIN and hand over a potentially contaminated piece of hardware?

Or am I missing something?