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Last Sunday, we woke up to the news that the Isle of Wight had actually been chosen as the pilot location for the NHS coronavirus contact tracking app, the idea had been put forward by the council leader earlier in the week. previous.
So, a manic week started here at News OnTheWight, where we’ve been pulling stories as usual, participating in national media briefings, digging into the details of the app, and exploring privacy issues as we deal with media inquiries from around the world. All kinds of organizations started pushing press releases supporting the app, the most unexpected being the Church of England.
When Matt Hancock, the health secretary, announced at last Monday’s press conference, “Where the Isle of Wight goes, Britain follows it,” there was a collective spitting of tea on the island and beyond. Of course, there were predictable jokes: “How do I install the application on my fax machine?” He was one of the best we heard, and once again, creativity was kindled with memes and T-shirts.
With so much attention, locally it felt like little else, but the application was discussed.
How has the application fallen? It seems that many people are getting on board, claiming any perceived privacy inconvenience as a small price to pay. Others, with previous smartphones, were excluded. Older residents heard at the post office said they really wanted to use the app, but that their steam mobile phones weren’t capable.
Despite the message that this was not the end of the blockade, we have received reports that the streets are more crowded than usual
Some turned to Facebook to voice concerns about Big Brother spying on them (sign of ironic explosion). However, by Thursday there had been nearly 30,000 downloads, which was the divide between islanders and outside security researchers and journalists remains a mystery (we are still awaiting the geographic breakdown).
Despite messages that this was not the end of the blockade, we have received reports that the island The streets have been more crowded than in previous weeks.
If that’s due to the good weather we’re having, people are getting a little earlier with Thursday’s headlines about easing the blockade measures, or the app looks like its “electronic vaccine,” it’s unclear, but A friend heard an exchange in the supermarket where when someone was reprimanded for not observing social distancing, they justified it saying, “Okay, now we have the application.”
We are sure there will be more news to come, such as the development of stories we are following about people who received notifications of potential infection just a few hours after installing the application.
Like others, we are struggling, so we ended the week by launching a Crowdfunder page to help us maintain trusted news coverage that our readers tell us they value.
