LONDON — The U.K.s coronavirus contact-tracing app will be ready for a localized trial within the next two weeks, the head of the National Health Services tech agency said.
Matthew Gould, CEO of NHSX, told MPs on the House of Commons science and technology committee that his team were working on the software at “full pelt.”
“We hope in the next couple of weeks well be in a position to roll it out in a small area,” he said. “Given this is essentially new technology and part of a wider strategy with several moving parts, it makes sense to see how it might work locally before going nationally. I would hope we would be ready in the next couple of weeks to look at it in a controlled and relatively smaller environment before scaling up.”
Gould said he expected the app to be “technically ready” for a wider deployment “in two to three weeks,” subject to it “performing in the trials and the smaller area in the way we expect.”
However, the timescale for national deployment depended on the U.K.s wider “test, trace and isolate” strategy, he said, of which the app is just one part. The government has said this will also require 18,000 people to take part in manual contact tracing by phone.
Asked whether it was feasible to expect 80 percent of smartphone users, or nearly 60 percent of the population, to download the app — the proportion that the team working on the technology believes would be optimal — Gould admitted it would be “tough.”
“It will require an enormous comms effort,” he said.
Several details of the apps functioning remain to be determined. Christophe Fraser, senior group leader in pathogen dynamics at Oxford Universitys Big Read More – Source
LONDON — The U.K.s coronavirus contact-tracing app will be ready for a localized trial within the next two weeks, the head of the National Health Services tech agency said.
Matthew Gould, CEO of NHSX, told MPs on the House of Commons science and technology committee that his team were working on the software at “full pelt.”
“We hope in the next couple of weeks well be in a position to roll it out in a small area,” he said. “Given this is essentially new technology and part of a wider strategy with several moving parts, it makes sense to see how it might work locally before going nationally. I would hope we would be ready in the next couple of weeks to look at it in a controlled and relatively smaller environment before scaling up.”
Gould said he expected the app to be “technically ready” for a wider deployment “in two to three weeks,” subject to it “performing in the trials and the smaller area in the way we expect.”
However, the timescale for national deployment depended on the U.K.s wider “test, trace and isolate” strategy, he said, of which the app is just one part. The government has said this will also require 18,000 people to take part in manual contact tracing by phone.
Asked whether it was feasible to expect 80 percent of smartphone users, or nearly 60 percent of the population, to download the app — the proportion that the team working on the technology believes would be optimal — Gould admitted it would be “tough.”
“It will require an enormous comms effort,” he said.
Several details of the apps functioning remain to be determined. Christophe Fraser, senior group leader in pathogen dynamics at Oxford Universitys Big Read More – Source
