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Countries around the world are rushing to launch contact tracking apps to identify who an infected person has had contact with, as part of efforts to stem the spread of the coronavirus.
The UK government has announced that the infrastructure is being installed so that contact tracking can be implemented on a large scale.
“Looking ahead, this is critical to keeping the virus under control,” Matt Hancock, health secretary, said Thursday.
Hancock said a new NHS contact tracking app was being tested.
From teams of “Crown Detectives, “to Army cadets who make thousands of calls a day, these are some of the ways countries are tracking the spread of Covid-19.
What is contact tracking?
Tracing contacts is a method of preventing the spread of disease. Health workers interview people who have been diagnosed with coronavirus and determine who they may have recently been in contact with. They put together a timeline and a network of contacts, telling other people who might have been exposed to the infected person to quarantine.
What are the plans of the United Kingdom?
The Secretary of Health has revealed that infrastructure is being implemented so that contact monitoring can be implemented on a large scale.
The ministers announced Thursday that 18,000 contact trackers, including 3,000 health professionals, would be used to stop the spread of the coronavirus by tracking anyone suspected of having Covid-19.
But scientists have said the UK would need to recruit up to 100,000 contact trackers for this to be effective.
A new NHS contact tracking app is currently in testing. It works by using Bluetooth signals to detect when two phones get close to each other, and anyone who doesn’t feel good about coronavirus symptoms can notify the app, which would then inform other users they had significant contact with.
“The more people who subscribe to this new app when it becomes available, the better informed our response will be, and therefore the better we can protect the NHS,” Hancock said.
