UK: Thousands could have isolated for no reason due to Covid app error, says source
Whitehall whistleblower says Matt Hancock was told of mistake where people were classed as close contacts for five days, not two, before he resigned.
Many thousands of people may have isolated unnecessarily because a government error meant they were “pinged” by the Covid app for a “close contact” in the prior five days rather than two days, a Whitehall whistleblower has told the Guardian.
As the isolation rules for double vaccinated people were relaxed on Monday, it has emerged that users were never told the app could notify of contact with an infected person as far back as five days before the positive test.
Official guidance for the NHS Covid app defined close contact as occurring two days before the infected person had symptoms, while the official NHS test-and-trace service has always used two days as its definition.
The Whitehall source said that the error had been flagged in a submission to Matt Hancock, the then health secretary, shortly before he resigned at the end of June but it had never been publicly admitted.
Around a month later, Sajid Javid, the new health secretary, said he would be updating the app so that people without symptoms would only have their contacts searched for two days prior to their positive test, rather than five days. He said this was being “updated based on public health advice to look back at contacts two days prior to a positive test”.
It is understood that the Department of Health and Social Care’s (DHSC) online guidance on the Covid app has never had a reference to a lookback period of five days.
The disclosure means that many thousands of people – those who had contact with symptomless people between five and three days before the positive test – were potentially asked to isolate unnecessarily.
“The standard definition of a contact in all the scientific and public stuff from Public Health England and NHS test and trace is someone who has been in contact from two days before they have symptoms and if they don’t have symptoms but test positive, you go back two days from the test,” the Whitehall source said.
“But the app had five days in it. A submission was made to Hancock from test and trace people around the time of his resignation saying ‘it’s five days but it should be two days: should we change it now? And it didn’t happen.’”
Justin Madders, the shadow health minister, said it was “another shambolic situation from hapless ministers”. “The Covid app has been one mess after another and a lack of clear information and guidance around the app only undermines its effectiveness,” he added.
The DHSC did not challenge the whistleblower’s account and was not able to point to a place where the Covid app guidance publicly referred to contacts being searched five days prior to a positive case.
…moar:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/17/covid-app-pinged-close-contacts-in-prior-five-days-not-two-says-source