Coronavirus - worldwide spread and control

From the guardian article,
“The app would not need to access location data, but could log users’ proximity to each other through Bluetooth. Once a user reports symptoms or a positive test result, the app would trace back through close contacts over the past seven days and alert those calculated to be at risk. Once deployed, developers would use data on who is actually infected to optimise the app’s performance and gain further insights into how transmission occurs.”

But do most people have their Bluetooth turned on? I never have it turned on.
And what if people’s phones were turned off when they were in contact with that person/ didn’t have Bluetooth on at that time /they don’t have a phone?

 

People who use their phones and connect them to activity trackers, and a lot who listen to music, will have bluetooth turned on.

However, the bluetooth location system does not require bluetooth to be enabled - or so I seem to remember reading.

 

This is very worrying:

https://twitter.com/user/status/1246423598073511936

 

Oh ok -I actually still don’t know what Bluetooth is used for, and I never have it turned on. But what if people have their phones turned off at that time or don’t use a phone? Or on the airplane mode? I guess they will need to give advice that people have to have their phone turned on whenever they’re in the presence of others..

 

It seems that if location services are on then bluetooth location services are also - at least up until android marshmallow.

So if a phone was used to grab the weather then bluetooth location services would be logging where you are in repect of other bluetooth devices - and at least some of them will be locatable - so your relative position compared with other bluetooth (and wifi, ans 4G masts) would probably be discoverable.


Phone based tracking does tend to lose accuracy when phones are off, but not as much as when the battery is removed which may be one reason that phones in the last couple of years, at least, don;t allow the battery to be removed - as it makes no sense from a consumer point of view to have to junk the phone when the battery dies.

Things may become more problematic in tracking those who don't use a phone - expect a solution at some point if this carries on

 

Quite, neither my husband or I have a smart phone, just very old, basic mobile which we hardly ever use. We can't afford to buy and run smart phones and I'm sure there must be quite a lot of people in the same boat, or elderly people/or not so elderly people, who maybe couldn't deal with the technology. So how many people would that discount who could then be an unmonitored pool of infection?

For such a scheme to work would it not need to be pretty universal?

 

There are almost too many credible warnings --- where do you start? This virus/illness is called "SARS-CoV-2"; I assume that the "2" refers to the fact that there was an earlier one "SARS" i.e. in 2003(?). SARS-CoV-2 is crucially more transmissible than SARS. I assume that SARS (2003) is what prompted Germany to set up it's mass testing network [500K/week antigen/PCR tests in Germany versus 60K(?) in the UK].

If you live in the UK then another credible warning may have been the UK Government report in 2016, on a potential influenza pandemic/UKs ability to cope, i.e. highlighting the lack of ventilators/ECMO.

Then in January 2020(?) the news was coming out that a lot of people in Wuhan needed ventilators. At that stage Doctors in the UK were probably beginning to realise the dangers --- lack of ventilators/ECMO.

As for disclosing when the Government knew as @Jonathan Edwards has indicated, I wouldn't rule out that the record records what they'd like --- not what they were told.

EDIT: @Jonathan Edwards has pointed out that the system doesn't give us the outcomes we are looking for; e.g. 500K tests/week (to identify people who are infectious) to reduce transmission rates, sufficient resources (staff & equipment) in NHS --- maybe we should ask how we can incentivise the delivery of those things. At this stage the we are at risk from the failure to deliver adequate testing and adequate resources in hospitals.

 

"The hospital says nobody should attend the A&E department, even if they have an emergency."

This is happening in Italy I suspect. It will be over much of the world in a month or less. Most hospitals will be overwhelmed. Even if you make it to a hospital there will be no beds, and no doctors. Only the most critical patients should even be seeking to use the medical system, as hospitals will be an infection hotspot anyway.

We have the capacity to limit and decrease this issue over time, via basic strategies like isolation. Anywhere that fails to do that is in huge trouble. Australian numbers of new cases are in steep decline, though we might get a huge boost soon due to taking people from cruise ships who have been held offshore. Isolation works.

 

Around 4-5 deaths in Melbourne were cancer patients in an oncology ward. I think they had blood cancers. This article is a day out of date but all I could find right now:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04...-in-melbourne-raises-australian-toll/12116298

 

Oh no I hadn’t even realised this. As I don’t go out and people I know are also staying at home. But it looks like lockdown in the Uk (and US) isn’t really a lockdown

I think this is all because Boris Johnson kept talking about making sure you get one form of exercise a day, get out of the house, mental health etc. He’s literally telling people to keep going out.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1246185857410904069


https://twitter.com/user/status/1246125442588905474

 

Can someone explain or point to information as to why the Uk govt do not feel a need to tackle this. All I hear is people pointing it out, flights have been landing since the very beginning from every country regardless of whether or not they were the epicentre of an outbreak, with no checks and no info, but no minister has answered why?

https://twitter.com/user/status/1246148619440476165

 

It looks as if the real experts are now stepping in in the UK - including Alyson Pollock, who is a very smart lady indeed. She has a track record of speaking her mind on important matters perhaps in contrast to some in official positions up to now. They suggest an army of contact tracers. That makes sense These need to be organised locally so that the contact status of every citizen, district and town is considered.

 

I agree. The need for a proper infrastructure had been set out for the UK government within the last ten year and ignored due to shortage of resources.

In terms of warnings once Covid19 appeared, anyone who has been to medical school and listened to the news (i.e. me in Switzerland at the time) in the last week of January could predict exactly what was going to happen if arrivals from China, or subsequently Italy, did not leave cold trails and the likelihood of that was at least 50%. By late February it was abundantly clear that the whole thing was going to blow up exponentially without Wuhan style shutdown. That is why we cancelled out second trip to France, being pretty sure return journey would be shut down - which it was.

 

The idea of solving contact tracing by inventing a new untried app seems daft to me. It is perfectly possible to trace people using conventional methods used all the time for tracing TB epidemics. There are trained people who do this all the time. It is just that there aren't enough of them.

 

It seems that people in the UK are going out to parks more. I doubt this is a big factor, although in towns I think everyone should be wearing a mask if within ten yards of others. The airport thing is the really scary one. There is no way to implement an effective control strategy if airports are open. Not only do you not know who is bringing new trails of virus in but airports/aeroplanes look to be the perfect environment for cross-contamination.

 

I agree, which is why I’m finding it really hard to understand why nothing is being done about it, even at this stage. What’s the strategy in that?

 

Probably because those accounts have not identified their home as being their home so it's seeing people being in the same place but without the label that it is indeed their home.

 

Iceland is using its police detectives to do that. Pretty smart, as they are unlikely to have much crime-solving to do lately. They also do a bunch of other things right so I'm not sure how useful that it without the other useful stuff. I've seen reports of a few countries start with contact tracing and going to deeper lockdown because it simply isn't enough. Just one part of the solution.