Just what the doctors ordered
MEDICAL EXPERT 1
Dr Sarah Jarvis MBE is a London GP, and an NHS Test and Trace spokesperson. me the risk had risen from low to medium. This is important for you to know. For instance, you might rethink what you do in terms of your visiting, socialising, going out and about.
“It is decentralised and all information is stored on your phone. You can delete the app at any time and everything disappears. It cannot enforce self-isolation. It does not know who you are or where you are.
“It is really important to stress that nothing entered on the website will be shared with the app and nothing from the app will be shared with the website. The only information that passes between the two is a completely anonymous digital token that gets the result back to the app.”
MEDICAL EXPERT 2
Prof Christophe Fraser is Professor of Pathogen Dynamics at the Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford. “The more we can participate with NHS Test and Trace, stay in well ventilated areas, wear face coverings and wash hands, the less likely we are to end up in lockdown.
“So there’s a social pact there. You can just think if you, your friends and your colleagues use the app, you’ve got an early warning system that here comes the virus.
“In the UK we’re on a knifeedge and we do face a difficult situation.
“There are local lockdowns already. NHS Test and Trace is
MEDICAL EXPERT 4
Dr David Bonsall is a Researcher at Oxford University’s Nuffield Department of Medicine and Clinician at John Radcliffe Hospital.
“You have two options when it comes to testing and contact tracing. You either test and contact trace people faster than the virus to stop the spread or you test and contact trace people slower than the virus and you watch it spread.
“We knew we needed to speed the system up so we came up with a core algorithm for contact tracing using smartphones that have the ability to detect when two people have come together. It provides a system that works. The app is there to help people. The testing needs to happen quickly and we need to support people who are quarantining.
“Businesses and workplaces absolutely must regard this as an important thing that people are doing that helps us control the epidemic.
“If we do more than what we’re doing now then we can get there. “So just a bit more of an effort and we can get the epidemic under control.
“We will make a difference.
“Our team all agree that the more people who download the app, the more we can add to the control effort.
“If more of us do it, the more we can turn the tide.” hope at a time when there isn’t a lot going around. The public understands that, if you take a process that isn’t working because it’s too slow and you add computers and smartphones into the mix, then you can make the process more efficient. By doing this, you save lives. For example, if you download it and I download it and we come into close contact, if you get infected and the app notifies me that I might be infected, I don’t go and visit my gran as a result. I can help protect her. That’s how this works. Gran doesn’t need the app to benefit from it. If you download the app, you’re protected and you’re more likely to be protecting the people you care about around you.”