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Software Medicine Technology

Coronavirus: NHS Contact Tracing App To Target 80 Percent of Smartphone Users (bbc.com) 67

Posted by BeauHD from the stopping-the-spread dept.
The University of Oxford's Big Data Institute found that 56% of the general population, or 80% of current smartphone owners, would need to use a contact-tracing app for it to be effective in helping stop the coronavirus. The BBC reports: If there is lower uptake, academics say the app would still help slow the spread of Covid-19. They add that letting people self-diagnose the illness could be critical. The experts say "speed is of the essence", and that delaying contact tracing by even a day from the onset of symptoms could make the difference between epidemic control and resurgence. "There would be more people receiving notifications as a result of false warnings," explained Prof Christophe Fraser.

The team estimates that 56% of the general population must use the app to halt the outbreak. Prof Fraser said that equated to 80% of all existing smartphone owners, based on data from Ofcom. "That's a very ambitious target," the professor acknowledged. "It's not something that would typically happen for a new app - even an incredibly popular one - but if we can explain that this is a public health intervention, that will be new and different. [...] More than 80% of people surveyed said they were likely to or would install this app when it was explained in detail what it would be doing." Even if fewer people install the app, the team estimates that one infection will be averted for every one to two users.
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Coronavirus: NHS Contact Tracing App To Target 80 Percent of Smartphone Users More

Coronavirus: NHS Contact Tracing App To Target 80 Percent of Smartphone Users

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  • I must be in danger (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Thursday April 16, 2020 @06:20PM (#59956650)

    I'm lying head to head with an infected person in my apartment building, with just a thin apartment wall between me and my neighbor next door, each of us with their phone on the nightstand with maybe one foot between them. (He sleeps on the right, I on the left side)
    And I don't even mention the people above and below me.

    The app will go crazy. Ditto with a few million other people.

    Such things might work in Buttfuck, Cornwall but in London?

    • A New Label (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Kunedog ( 1033226 ) on Thursday April 16, 2020 @06:27PM (#59956670)
      How long, I wonder, until anyone who resists such a spying app is shamed as an Anti-Traxxer . . .

      • Re:A New Label (Score:5, Insightful)

        by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Thursday April 16, 2020 @07:01PM (#59956738)

        The big question is when, if ever, the tracking will end.

        Covid is a big win for the surveillance state.

        • The big question is when, if ever, the tracking will end.

          Covid is a big win for the surveillance state.

          ~SHANGHAI BILL

          IT'S A WASH

        • The big question is when, if ever, the tracking will end.

          Covid is a big win for the surveillance state.

          ~SHANGHAI BILL QUOTING SNOWDEN

          You now know why Collusion In Absence is the new paradigm?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by piojo ( 995934 )

          The big question is when, if ever, the tracking will end.

          Covid is a big win for the surveillance state.

          In China, I'm not sure. But in the Western world, my first immature thoughts on the issue are: we should all install the app so there is no excuse or motivation to try piggybacking tracking logic into the common advertising frameworks or the common apps everyone uses. If all tracking is done through an app, it will be easy to uninstall at will. If tracking is incorporated into a more hidden component (like in China, where tracking is done with a WeChat plugin), we will never be rid of it.

          • Don't worry, Google and Apple have already put it directly into their operating systems.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

              How much would they have to record to fill 10 exabytes of storage?
              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

              It's a given that they are recording every telephone conversation made. Lets say about 30mins per day = 30*60*1KB(/s) *365 *300,000,000 = 197,100,000,000,000,000B = 197,100,000,000 MB = 197,100 TB = 197 Pb. So That's 0.2EB per year.

              In 2017 Youtube was storing about 100PB of video per year.

              Conclusion: NSA is already storing everything!!

        • The tracking has _always_ been here, hiding in the shadows. Now it's showing itself for the whole world to see.

          This is not new. There's no need for a special app, it's built into your phone. It's already happening and has been happening for years.

        • Covid is a big win for the surveillance state.

          No where near as much as it is a win for conspiracy theorists. All you have to do is mention the state now and you get showed with modpoints.

      • Re:A New Label (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Rick Schumann ( 4662797 ) on Thursday April 16, 2020 @08:53PM (#59956880) Journal
        Nevermind that, what about those of us who do not have and do not need/want a smartphone in the first place? Are we to be (attempted to be) shamed into buying a piece of technology we don't want?
        • Comment removed based on user account deletion

          • That would put you in the 20%

            Do the maths (if you can, which I must admit to doubting). If you accept the figures given in TFS, that would be 70% of the population having a smart phone.

            Which would be about right, assuming my family are approximately normal. Mum probably hasn't used any phone, land line or mobile, to make a call for nearly 20 years. Dad has a non-smart phone, which he turns on about once a week to check for messages when he goes shopping. And he uses the landline, and email. Which adds up t

    • Dud(ette), we can figure that part out.

      We managed to build the biggest freaking supercomputer ever to exist in order to attack this virus. I think we can sort out your walls.

      • Bootlicker identified.

        • I think you'd better read back in my posting history...

          But look: I'm pro-humans-still-being-alive and pro-privacy, quite strongly. You get the smart people, like Moxie Marlinspike over there, to do the heavy lifting by figuring out the mathematical means, then you give it to morons like me who are great at using proofs and rules and mechanisms researchers have figured out (but maybe we're not so hot on the theory side, or just plain not interested as much) to directly solve a problem.

          I suggest that there ex

      • Dud(ette),...We managed to...

        ~weilawei

        Nearly murder your PM

        British intelligence continues to assert fictions of managing contiguous populations.

        Taiwan’s advantage of a bound population to achieve diminishment of Covid-19’s advance is similar to when Las Vegas managed its feral cat and stray dog populations to zero— a surrounding desert insulating any contiguous contamination. Las Vegas vets circulated training videos for pet owners to spade and neuter their own animals because surgery on a pet is not illegal.

        Trump

        • "Dr. Harris, do you concur?"

          "Yes?"

          "Do you concur?"

          "Concur with what, sir?"

          "I concur."

          [...]

          "I blew it, didn't I? Why didn't I concur?"

      • It would cost more to sort out everyone's walls than build that supercomputer. How willing are you to share the bill?

        • Sorting out the walls is a theoretical problem, and if I were to go down that sort of road again, I'd suggest looking into multilateration and multipath issues. Given the remarkable availability of signal sources and receivers, I think that the cost to develop is more likely to be a small team of skilled mathematicians and engineers.

          Long before ISPs offered fancy parental controls for WiFi and so forth, I worked on a project to selectively route traffic to clients based on their physical location in a build

    • And yes, it will still work. If the density is that high then the gov't can and will find the infected and ship them to the country for a 3 week paid vacation.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fintux ( 798480 )

      That's still a manageable amount of people. Also, the walls do attenuate the Bluetooth signal, and the signal strength is taken into account. It is also better to entirely quarantine a portion of the population (even something like 10%) rather than have a partial lock-down of the entire population. This will also help on focusing the testing efforts, so the precious testing resources can be targeted better rather than just shooting blindly.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      That's how it is supposed to work. If your neighbour is infected then you should be tested too, even if you think you have been keeping your distance. Were you careful not to touch the door handles or the buttons on the lift? Maybe they sneezed and the micro droplets hung around in the air for ten minutes and you walked through the cloud without even knowing it.

      The real problem is the UK doesn't have the testing capacity.

  • So all Apple needs to do is patent a sneeze detection algorithm and build it into iOS.

    • You mean watchOS. They're already testing to see if then iWatch can detect COVID-19 symptoms.

  • How many people will send out false positives if it doesn't require some type of doctor access code or public health department approval? Yes you want poor people that can't or won't go to a doctor to be able to use it (in the USA and other poor countries), but I could just imagine some bored teenagers trying to get a high score of how many people they came in contact with and got to stay home.

    • Yeah, it will be interesting to see if the designers of the app are at all aware of some of the problems which might seem obvious to those of us actually familiar with how the Internet works (or doesn't work, depending on your point of view).

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dwywit ( 1109409 )

        I've accumulated a variety of smartphones over the years. Some have cracked screens, some are just obsolete, smartphone-wise - but all they need is a SIM to *be* a phone. I periodically charge their batteries to keep them viable. 3 x iPhones, a HTC, a Motorola RAZR HD, etc.

        But their operating systems are old, and they don't get any more OTA updates, and app updates keep saying "your device isn't compatible". So, no more android updates, no more IOS updates, no more app updates. Not worth it to use them, fro

    • Pokemon Go knows the answer.

    • I think an app is the worst "solution" to the infection communication. First, it requires that lots of people (1) install the app, (2 activate it) and (3) carry their phone with them. At each point you loose active people, and none of this is necessary.

      Such an app can only be the digital equivalent of the medieval leprosy rattle, which infected people had to carry and sound to warn others of infection risk. A non-app solution (say wearing a distinctive hat) would be far more effective.

      But even the hat fails

    • Yes, I think trolls will be a big problem. Though its slightly self correcting. First, avoid being in close contact with any teenagers, something I already do. Second, send a team to test a significant portion of those who self identify. If the individual alarms more than once falsely, the person will now have some untrusted mark, and they can't go into stores.

  • be used for coronavirus, who's to say it is not currently being used now, by god knows who.
    Seems like something Google, Apple and China would have already perfected so China can track their citizens.

    Big tech yea I trust them. Not! ;)

    Just my 2 cents ;)

  • I keep saying this (Score:2, Interesting)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 )
    but at least hear in America we aren't going to have a choice. The owners of the Grocery stores will mandate the app be turned on before you can walk in the door. And there's only a few major stores left. Most markets really only have 2 stores but different branding depending on the part of town.

    We need to think about how to limit the damage from the privacy concerns, because this is happening with our without our consent. We set up a ruling class, gave them power, and we are not going to take that powe
    • I don't know what you are smoking, but that is not going to happen. They can't force this on us, it's not a police state. Stop spreading fear.
      • Almost every store you shop at is owned by a mega corp. The ones that don't have insurance policies with mega corps.

        You can use good 'old fashioned capitalism to mandate this.

        The places you go that are owned by large corporations will mandate you use the app to enter their stores. You can order online, if you can wait 2 weeks for groceries and medicine.

        The places you go that are owned by small businesses will be required to mandate it or their insurance premiums will skyrocket. Or they'll be sue
        • No, as the person above you said, you're on drugs apparently. None of that is going to happen, you're either panicked out of your right mind and are screaming about the sky falling, or you're trolling. Either way please just stop.

          • What the other person said was "They can't force this on us, it's not a police state."

            The fact is, they can say that anyone who doesn't follow whatever made up rule is "trespassing" and disallow entry. However, they'll care far less about insurance than they will about lost sales. It will never happen.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by dwywit ( 1109409 )

            And some good drugs, too. Must be the work-from-home thing, allows people to spend more time with their "special" plants.

            Now, if only I could figure out what kind of music the plants like to hear........hmm, a bluetooth speaker in the basement......

        • Way more people don't have phones than you probably imagine. And stores aren't going to allow themselves to be accused of harassing the poor because they don't own a phone, particularly a smart phone. Per Pew Research, 81% of Americans own a smartphone. That means one in five don't. It'll never happen unless you give every citizen a free phone.

    • The owners of the Grocery stores will mandate the app be turned on before you can walk in the door.

      Um, no, I don't think so. I laugh at any store that tries it.

    • Just buy a cheap burner phone, install the app on that, and leave it at home. Show that phone to the $10/hour clerk who's checking phones at the door, and leave your "real" phone in your pocket.
    • Yeah, but America doesn't have a health service worth mentioning.

      Why do you only have 2 grocery stores per town? Because you let that happen, by not shopping at your local stores, and instead going to the large-scale scalpers.

      How, exactly, are grocery stores going to check if this is installed on your phone? Are they going to employ someone to have a half-hour conversation to persuade one to install it before entering the store, while blocking the door for the next person in or out? Then try showing them

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