NHS Covid App - Disappearing Alert

powerful_Rogue

Running the covid NHS app on my android phone.

Today an alert was showing in the notification bar saying "You have been in contact with someone with covid-19" or similar wording. When I clicked on the notification it vanished and nothing happened.

There is nothing showing in the NHS app.

If I go into the 'Covid-19 exposure notifications' settings, I can see at that time the alert came through, it says "Number of matches: 1"

I've found this page, however it was neither of these messages - https://faq.covid19.nhs.uk/article/KA-01252/en-us?parentid=CAT-01029&rootid=

Contacted 111 to ask for advice, and they have not been trained on the app and had no further information. There is a webform to contact the developer, which I have done.

Anyone else had this issue?

powerful_Rogue

Ignore that, seems like I had to find information from the NI App to get a better understanding!

https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/articles/coronavirus-covid-19-stopcovid-ni-proximity-app

daveyjp

England uses a Serco app, not an NHS one,

powerful_Rogue

daveyjp said:

England uses a Serco app, not an NHS one,

Well it's called NHS Covid 19, sure people know what I mean.

Grumpy_chap

I had to download the app as they would not let me into the gym this morning without it.
I don't understand how it works.  If I walk past someone who walked past someone etc. who had Covid symptoms (but may or may not have Covid), I will get some kind of message that I could die so need to spend 2 weeks holed up in a bunker?
Is that it?

powerful_Rogue

Why knows @Grumpy_chap . Information online is poor and 111 have had no training on it.

elsien

They have an algorithm that allegedly works out the risk from proximity to the person and the length of time you were near to them. And probably a few other things thrown into the mix as well.

What does your gym do if you don’t carry your phone around, or it’s not a smart phone, or it’s too old to download the app, like my ageing one? I think I’d be challenging the gym on that one as they can take contact details another way. 

Grumpy_chap

Yes, the gym can take details another way, but everything at the gym seems to be run over an app, so to say "no phone" would be a hard sell on the member's part.
I am waiting until they get the gym app good enough that I can sit at home watching Saturday Kitchen and still get buff and trim

Yahoo_Mail

Grumpy_chap said:

I had to download the app as they would not let me into the gym this morning without it.
I don't understand how it works.  If I walk past someone who walked past someone etc. who had Covid symptoms (but may or may not have Covid), I will get some kind of message that I could die so need to spend 2 weeks holed up in a bunker?
Is that it?

No, you need to have walked past someone who has installed the app, has received a positive test result for Coronavirus AND input the test code into the app (or ordered a test directly through the app and tested positive.)  Contact of contacts do not trigger an alert, they can't.  There is no central database to match this to and your phone only knows who you have been in contact with, not who anyone you have been in contact with has been in contact with.

Probably worth noting that the current self-isolation guidance does not require contacts of contacts to self-isolate, even if they're living together so there's no reason why the app would, even if it could.

Grumpy_chap

OK, so I walk past someone who put in the App they have Coronavirus (except that data entry is entirely optional?) then I get sent a message that I could dies so need to spend 2 weeks in the bunker?

Yahoo_Mail

Grumpy_chap said:

OK, so I walk past someone who put in the App they have Coronavirus (except that data entry is entirely optional?) then I get sent a message that I could dies so need to spend 2 weeks in the bunker?

They can't just say "I have Coronavirus."  They need to enter a unique code they receive if they take an official test and receive a positive result.  You can't troll people by labelling yourself as infected and walking through London.