Just so.

You can't make people download an app.
You certainly can't make them be honest about who they see or where they go - despite threats of huge fines, even.
And even if you do find a contact AND they are honest, you can't then make them strictly adhere to quarrantine rules - and that's beside the fact they've already probably infected who-knows-how-many in the time it took to trace this one!

The only way tracking and tracing really works is in totalitarian regimes or in compliant regimes (like South Korea).
We (and most other places) are neither.

When Dido Harding returned to her Somerset home by car on Sunday afternoon, she was towing her horsebox. An equine enthusiast for decades and board member of the Jockey Club, horses are how the boss of the government's Test and Trace programme relaxes.

Government sources point out she has achieved the equivalent of "building an operation the size of Tesco in a matter of months". And whilst the vast increase in testing capacity has been impressive (sic), a key metric for suppressing the virus concerns the percentage of close contacts traced. The government's scientists say it must be above 80% for the system to be effective, but that target was last hit in mid-June.

This month's figures have been getting progressively worse, with just under 60% of close contacts being traced. Critics argue that by consistently missing such an important target, more people are becoming infected, more hospitalised, and more will die.

Yet Baroness Harding retains - at least for now - the support and respect of her two direct bosses: Boris Johnson and Cabinet Secretary Simon Case. And she remains a convenient lightning rod for criticism. It may help that she is loyal and well connected in Conservative circles. David Cameron was a university contemporary at Oxford (and appointed her a Baroness) while her husband, John Penrose, is a Tory MP.

Whatever her skills, communicating carefully may not be among them. Last month, she attracted criticism after telling a Commons committee that the surge in testing demand when schools returned after the summer had caught her by surprise.

That admission is perhaps why Downing Street has repeatedly blocked interview requests. At a time when cabinet ministers are having to defend her almost on a daily basis, the one person seemingly unwilling to publicly defend Dido Harding's work is her.

'Loyal and well-connected' Test and Trace boss Harding still has PM's support - for now

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavir...r-now-12114766


Cosy coterie .....

You might think so.
Be honest: given the publicity, would you do it?
I know for certain that I wouldn't; it's another one of those where no matter what you do there are those that will condemn you for it.

Macron was praising out track and trace the other day - we have about 10 million subscribers of the app plus all hospitality outlets are issuing mandatory registration on entering them.

If Omah had his way we would be like communist china where if you don't take a covid test you get shot.

Hi

An alternative view.

https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/bre...essful-3844732

LA trace is getting more than double the National one because they have EHOs going out on the ground.

A number of Military EHOs have been deployed as well.

As regards hospitality venues, you must be joking.

It is very patchy and some have been fined and some closed for not recording customers and having at times over a hundred in not complying with the rules.

https://www.shropshirestar.com/news/...-rules-breach/

An update to England and Wales' contact-tracing app is set to serve more self-isolation alerts. The change coincides with a change to the app's algorithm to make its contact-matches more reliable.

"The update to the risk threshold is expected to increase the number of people asked to self-isolate by the app, having been in close contact with someone who tested positive," Gaby Appleton (the latest head of the NHS COVID-19 app) blogged. "We believe lowering the threshold is necessary to reduce the R rate and break the chain of transmission."

Ms Appleton added that the app has been downloaded by more than 19,000,000 people since 24 September, equating to about 40% of eligible adults.

Gaby Appleton, a director of Dutch academic publishing company Elsevier, was revealed by Sky News last week as the new head of the NHS COVID-19 app, which operates in England and Wales.

She is the THIRD person to lead the app team in the last SIX MONTHS. NONE of the three heads have a background in public health.

The news that Ms Appleton was on a six-month secondment to Test and Trace was not made public when her appointment was confirmed, despite being announced to her colleagues at Elsevier almost a month ago, according to internal emails seen by Sky News.