Sri Krishna
Business Minister Nadhim Zahawi has confirmed that a new NHS coronavirus contact-tracing application will be available for public use by the end of the month as the trial has come to end. He said that the application which was trialled in the Isle of Wight will be up and running soon.
In the previous week, a new test and trace system was launched in England Scotland but the application was not brought there because of delays. The Guardian confirmed through the NHS boss that the wider scheme will be imperfect at first and then made ‘world-class’ by the autumn. It also said that through the comments made by CEO of test and trace scheme that the scheme would be fully working by September or October.
The NHS application has been designed to automatically alert people began trial on the Isle of Wight in the early days of May. Though the government had hoped to launch it by the middle of May, some imperfections led to its delay and the app has still not been launched.
Meanwhile, the doctors in UK have urged government to make face mask compulsory in public at all place where maintaining social distancing is impossible. The government thereafter made an announcement making wearing mask from June 15 compulsory on all public transport.
Scotland has also launched its tracing scheme last week while there was already a contact tracing application functional in Northern Ireland which had begun functioning earlier. Wales too began its app on last Monday.
As per Mr Zahawi, “The app, we are working flat out. We want to make sure it actually does everything it needs to do and will be in place this month.” “I can’t give you an exact date, it would be wrong for me to do so,” he added. When asked if the application would be launched by the end of this month, he said, “I’d like to think we’d be able to manage by this month, yes.”
He further clarified that the pilot scheme which was trialled in the Isle of Wight showed that people would actually prefer to be contacted by a human being rather than an app. That is why “We’ve recruited 25,000 people who are track-and-tracers who can deal with about 10,000 cases a day,” he said.
