UK contact tracking app will be ready in “two to three weeks”

NHSX CEO Matthew Gould has announced that the UK contact tracking app, which will help ease coronavirus blocking restrictions, will be released to the public in May.

Speaking to the Science and Technology Committee, Gould said that the application it would be “technically ready” for deployment in “two to three weeks”.

He also stated that the application, which alert users to recent contacts who are infected with coronavirus, It would be crucial for the UK to get out of the blockade without creating an environment for an even bigger virus outbreak.

“If you want to protect the NHS and prevent it from being overwhelmed and, at the same time, you want the economy to move, then enforcement will be an essential part of a strategy to do so,” he said.

Gould’s announcement comes just days after the UK government made the unexpected decision to adopt a centralized model for its contact tracking application, rejecting the decentralized API jointly developed by Apple and Google that has been chosen by other countries. Europeans.

Professor Christophe Fraser, a senior group leader in pathogen dynamics at the Oxford University Big Data Institute who has been providing crucial advice during the development of the application, told the Committee that only a centralized approach would provide the epidemiologists a sufficient idea of ​​how effective the application was proving to be

“Because we do not know what the acceptance of the application will be, in scenarios that are relatively pessimistic we discovered that if approximately 60% of the population uses the application, it would be enough to bring the number of reproduction below one and control the epidemic” , said.

The Science and Technology Committee also heard that app development didn’t start until March 7, just two weeks before the UK crashed.

Gould said the “teams of people are looking at it 24/7,” adding: “We hope, of course, to have the application ready for when it is necessary, by the time the country seeks to have the tools to safely exit the blockade. “

Last week, the app was being tested at a Royal North Yorkshire Air Force base, and the health secretary described the trials as “fine.”