NHS Covid-19 contact-tracing app for UK will not be ready before winter
I do worry about Matt Hancock and his predilection for high risk statements – this one seems to be unravelling. This story tells us:
The mobile phone contact-tracing app to tell people they may have been exposed to Covid-19, once a central part of the government’s response to the pandemic, will not be ready before the winter, a health minister has said.
Lord Bethell of Romford, the minister responsible for the smartphone app, said that it was not a priority for the government at the moment.
Speaking to the MPs on the Commons science and technology committee, Lord Bethell, the minister for innovation at the Department of Health and Social Care, also said the pilot scheme on the Isle of Wight had shown that people prefer to be contacted by a human being with the bad news, rather than by text message or email.
“We’re seeking to get something going for the winter, but it isn’t a priority for us,” he said.
In response to questions from the MP Graham Stringer, who said that “sounded like an argument against introducing it at all”, Lord Bethell said it was still the government’s intention to introduce the app.
The health secretary, Matt Hancock, said at the start of May that the app would be rolled out nationally in “mid-May”. When asked repeatedly about the delay, the government has insisted it is only a few weeks away.