First employees to trial UK virus tracing app
An NHS application which aims to track the spread of coronavirus will be rolled out for the very first time later, as part of a trial on the Isle of Wight.
Council and healthcare personnel would be the first to try the contact-tracing app, with the rest of the island in a position to download it from Thursday.
If the trial is prosperous, it may be available nationwide within weeks.
Concerns have already been raised over privacy, though ministers say the app has been designed with this "front of mind".
The application aims to quickly trace recent contacts of anyone who tests positive for the virus.
It is the main government's technique for appearing out of lockdown, which aims to have widespread testing and contact tracing in destination to monitor and reduce any future outbreaks.
If the trial is prosperous, the application will be rolled out over the whole of the united kingdom by the center of May, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said.
The new software - published on Apple and Google's iphone app stores - works by using a Bluetooth connection.
It records when two persons who have the app are within a certain distance of the other person for longer than a specified period of time.
If one particular people later reports having symptoms, all the other app users they arrived to contact with during the last a week will be alerted and told to self-isolate.
Mr Hancock urged everyone on the Isle of Wight to download the app when it was open to them. Social distancing rules would be in place during the trial, he said.
"By downloading the app, you are protecting your own health, you are protecting the health of your loved kinds and the fitness of your community," he said.
"Where the Isle of Wight goes, Britain follows."
The island was chosen for the trial because it includes a lower number of new infections, is covered by a single NHS trust and because happen to be and from the island is quite restricted.
It comes as the the amount of coronavirus-related deaths in the united kingdom reached 28,734, an increase of 288.
The daily upsurge in deaths is lower than at any point since the end of March, however the figures reported at the weekend have a tendency to be lower and so are likely to rise, Mr Hancock said.
