NHS organisations have started to develop and explore the feasibility of a coronavirus mobile app for instant contact tracing.
Oxford University has provided evidence to support the feasibility of developing a contact tracing mobile app that is instant and could be widely deployed. The team are currently testing and simulating the performance of the app.
Similar technology has been launched in Singapore, The TraceTogether app. It works by exchanging Bluetooth signals between phones to detect other participating users. It means authorities can track who has been exposed to people infected, and people showing signs of symptoms can input into the app.
Professor Christophe Fraser from Oxford University’s Big Data Institute “Coronavirus is unlike previous epidemics and requires multiple inter-dependent containment strategies. Our analysis suggests that almost half of coronavirus transmissions occur in the very early phase of infection, before symptoms appear, so we need a fast and effective mobile app for alerting people who have been exposed.”
“Our mathematical modeling suggests that traditional public health contact tracing methods are too slow to keep up with this virus.”
“The instant mobile app concept is very simple. If you are diagnosed with coronavirus, the people you’ve recently come into contact with will be messaged advising them to isolate. If this mobile app is developed and deployed rapidly, and enough people opt-in to use such an approach, we can slow the spread of coronavirus and mitigate against devastating human, economic and social impacts.”
Dr David Bonsall researcher at Oxford’s Nuffield Department of Medicine and clinician at Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital “Our findings confirm that not everybody has to use the mobile app for it to work. If with the help of the app the majority of individuals self-isolate on showing symptoms, and the majority of their contacts can be traced, we stand a chance of stopping the epidemic.”
“To work, this approach needs to be integrated into a national programme, not taken on by independent app developers. If we can securely deploy this technology, the more people that opt-in, the faster the epidemic will stop, and the more lives can be saved.”
“At the current stage of the epidemic, contact tracing can no longer be performed effectively by public health officials in the UK, and many countries across Europe, as coronavirus is spreading too rapidly. Our research of early data from other countries shows that patient histories are incomplete – we don’t know the details of the person we sat next to on the bus. We need an instantaneous and anonymous digital solution to confirm our person-to-person contact history.”
“Current strategies are not working fast enough to intercept transmission of coronavirus. To effectively tackle this pandemic we need to harness 21st century technology. Our research makes the case for a mobile application that accelerates our ability to trace infected people and provides vital information that keeps communities safe from this pandemic.”
