COVID-19: Track and Trace Farce

 Here in the UK we've had a track & trace mobile phone available for months.

You'd think the app would be storing information on where confirmed cases of Covid transmission happened and that the government would be offering that information so the population could avoid high-risk areas.

B8ut no, we're not getting any information out of the app. No details of numbers tracked and traced, no information on the areas or activities most likely to transmit the virus, no information on areas or activities to avoid.

So, what is the point of the app?

Considering that we were obliged for a time to use the app to log in to every pub, restaurant, shop, ship, bus or train we used, there should be useful data coming out of it.

Are the shops that are staying open the highest risk infection vector?

Is public transport safe?

Is the reason the information isn't being made public because it contradicts government policy?

Looking at the stats produced by the NHS, I can tell how many females or males of a certain age were tested positive, I can see where they lived. I can drill down to individual towns and infection rates, how many were tested and how many tested positive..

But the important thing, where covid-positive people met and infected other people, where they actually caught the virus is missing. 

Is it the Supermarkets? Is Tescos more deadly that Sainsburys or Waitrose? Are killer busses roaming the streets?

COVID-19: Time for Plan B?

 I said way back in November that if the (then) current measures were not stopping the spread of the virus, why did we persist in continuing with them?

Successive lockdowns haven't stopped the spread of the virus, masks, perspex screens, closing pubs, closing non-essential shops, the lot. None of it has stopped the spread of the virus.

Now we have the new, more transmissible variant that has the ability to get round these measures, there's even less reason to continue with the same measures over and over again.

I haven't yet seen a proper inquiry into where the virus is spreading. Where exactly are these people contacting each other?

Is it at work? Is it in the Supermarket? Is it on Public Transport? Just exactly where are people transmitting the virus to each other? After all the NHS covid app should be storing when and where people are in contact, so it shouldn't be rocket science to extract that information from the app to get a picture of the most risky activities 

Even though not all people have downloaded and activated the NHS covid track and trace application, the government should in theory be able to get enough information on when and where people were infected. If the app doesn't supply that sort of information, then it's next to useless, because the only way to stamp out on transmission is to reduce or suppress those activities that are spreading the virus.

Also, the statistics on where the virus is most liable to be spread can be passed onto the public and then even the most sceptical lockdown-deniers can make an informed choice on whether they avoid those areas of contact and transmission.

In order to get on top of the virus, we have to change our strategy. Doing the same things over and over again that are provably not stopping the spread of the virus is a waste of time, resources and is losing people their jobs unnecessarily.

Lets work smarter, work better and beat the virus.