The NHS’s long-awaited coronavirus contact tracing app could be an effective way to cut down new cases and stop the spread of the disease, a trial on the Isle of Wight has suggested.
Just two new cases of the illness have been discovered on the island, which is home to around 140,000 people, since the app’s initial trial ended on May 26.
This was a noticeable drop on the 45 cases spotted during the trial, suggesting that it worked by tracking the spread of the disease early on and stopped those patients from infecting other people.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock previously promised the app, then considered a vital part of the government’s test and trace strategy, would be ready to be rolled out across the UK by the middle of May.
But repeated delays have meant the app — now considered the cherry on top of the cake — is still unavailable anywhere except the Isle of Wight.
Results from the island must be taken with a pinch of salt, however, because the numbers of patients are so small there is a large margin for error, and it may actually be an increase in testing capacity which has helped to contain the outbreak.
Officials are now said to be reconsidering the importance they had placed on the app and instead focusing on ‘traditional’ contact tracing using human staff.
Mr Hancock is expected to release official data later today showing how successful the contact tracing scheme in the UK has been so far, revealing how many people have been traced.
Staff paid up to £27-an-hour to ring contacts of infected Britons have described the system as ‘shambolic’ and leaked figures last week suggested the scheme had tracked down fewer than half of positive cases in the first three days of its launch.
The NHS app is considered a vital part of the Government’s ‘test, track, trace’ programme for stopping a second wave of coronavirus infections in Britain
The NHS app, which is currently only available on the Isle of Wight, will rely on people accurately reporting whether they are ill or not, or have tested positive. Contacts will be advised to self-isolate while someone is tested
The Isle of Wight was chosen as the location for the NHS app trial because it is a self-contained island so the population was easy to monitor (Pictured: The village of Seaview on the island)
Data from the Isle of Wight shows that the app came at a time when the island was experiencing a surge in cases.
Having recorded only 154 coronavirus cases by May 7, the community then saw a 31 per cent surge in new cases when 45 were found in a month.
This outstripped the national outbreak in England, which grew by only 12 per cent in the same time, The Times reported.
But the unique conditions on the Isle, and the fact that the population and number of new cases were so small, make it difficult to know whether it was the app and contact tracing that helped.
Being on an island gives the community there natural protection, especially at a time when people were not allowed to travel there from the mainland, meaning fewer cases of the illness were carried there by outsiders.
And a small population meant it would be easier for people to get tested.
Professor Paul Hunter, a medicine lecturer at the University of East Anglia, told The Times: ‘It is very hard to draw a definitive conclusion because the overall case numbers on the island are small which makes it hard to prove in a statistically significant way… But it does look promising.’
Officials in the Goverment are said to be toning down their enthusiasm for the app, which was hailed as all-singing all-dancing in its early development stages.
The focus may now be shifting towards human contact tracers, The Times reported.
Government officials reportedly said they had been ‘too keen’ to push the app and that actually other countries that have had success have focused on human staff.
One source told the newspaper: ‘That doesn’t mean the app doesn’t have a role to play but it is not a single solution.’
Bob Seely, the Conservative MP for the Isle of Wight, said the results of the trial were promising but ‘need to be studied carefully’.
The NHS Test and Trace programme has been dogged by reports of IT problems and many of the thousands of staff having little or no work to do.
And last week it was reported that hundreds of staff being paid up to £27-per-hour were being let go because there was nothing for them to do.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock admitted yesterday that he still cannot say when the Government’s coronavirus contact-tracing app – the third strand of the project – will be ready to launch.
Mr Hancock told the virtual CogX technology conference that trials of the app have been continuing on the Isle of Wight.
‘The app is progressing and we will launch it when the time is right. I am not going to put a date on it,’ he said.
He said however that persuading people to self-isolate if they had been in contact with someone with the disease was better done by a human contact-tracer.
‘What really matters is the people. The technology is a facilitator for people to be able to do things better,’ he said.
‘Getting people actually used to the idea that if you are contacted by the contact tracer you do that (self-isolate). That is better done with human contact and hence the contact-tracing system that is up and running is working well.’
But while the app has been held up by technical issues, the human contact tracing schemes was also dogged with problems at the outset.
People working in the system, which was supposed to be fully operational by June 1, said at the start of this month that they did not contact anyone in the two weeks after starting work.
And employees said they were having to repeat training because glitches in the system meant they could not register that they had completed it already.
Those keen to get started said they were left twiddling their thumbs and stuck in queues of over 350 people waiting for technical help.
Sent laughing emojis by bosses who couldn’t help them, contact tracers said the system was ‘shambolic’ and unfit for purpose.
There are also concerns test and trace won’t work if Britons refuse to give friends or relatives’ details, and one call handler revealed two of the three potentially infected contacts she rang went straight to voicemail.
One source, who was employed by Sitel from May 13 was still waiting on June 1 to make their first call while earning £75-a-day for doing nothing.
Experts say the success of the project is crucial to banishing the virus from our lives and a 25,000-strong army of ‘test and trace’ call-handlers have been recruited by companies like Sitel and Serco for the task.
The source, who is based in the West Midlands, said: ‘Each day we login and it’s the same thing over and over again. We ask what we are going to be doing today only to be told to hold tight and chill out and, “you’re still getting paid”.’
Health Secretary Matt Hancock is expected to announce this afternoon how many people in the UK have been contacted through the Government’s contact tracing scheme so far
