Thousands put at risk by failures of phone tracing app

THOUSANDS of Scots have been put at risk of catching Covid because of failures with contact-tracing technology.

Nicola Sturgeon has urged everyone to install the Protect Scotland app on their smartphones, hailing it as a ‘simple and important’ weapon in the fight against the virus.

The app tracks people’s movements so that if someone tests positive for Covid, an alert can be sent to everyone in recent close proximity to that person, allowing them to selfisolate. But while around 50,000 people have tested positive since the app was launched on September 10, just 13,000 people have been alerted.

That means for every four people who contract coronavirus, only one person is alerted and warned.

Theoretically, it should be the case that for every person who tests positive, several more people should get a warning. Despite the First Minister praising the app as a ‘simple and important way in which we can combat Covid-19’, it has not been available to those with older mobile phones, including many elderly people.

So far some 1.6 million people have downloaded the app.

But figures show that of the users testing positive, fewer than half have then entered a code sent to them – which is necessary for the app to work properly. It means for every six people who contract the virus, just one successfully alerts their contacts through the app.

MSPs say the app has limitations, and improvements to the system must be made urgently, including hiring more contact tracers.

Scottish Labour health spokesman Monica Lennon said the app is ‘rendered useless’ if no code is entered and ‘is simply not accessible to thousands of elderly and vulnerable Scots’.

The Scottish Government said 34 per cent of people who have tested positive have been app users and, ‘of these, slightly less than half have gone on to enter their unique test code’.