As of right now, 21.63 million people have downloaded the app, or 56% of those who are eligible and have smartphones and are 16 or older. On the Apple App Store in 2020, it was the free iPhone app with the second-highest download rate.
A crucial step in the research process is peer review. Peer reviewers devote their time and expertise to supporting the validity of other researchers’ work. Learn more about tools, training, and resources that can make the peer review process easier. According to a peer-reviewed report, the NHS contact-tracing app significantly reduced the coronavirus’s spread in the UK.
The app offers users the option to examine their symptoms using the symptom checker in addition to contact tracing and scheduling a test. Since September 24 in England and Wales, the app has received over 1.5 million reports of coronavirus symptoms. Tens of thousands of fatalities and tens of thousands of disease cases were averted thanks to the app, say experts.
People want to know how new technology benefits them and to be reassured that it doesn’t have any negative effects. The Exposure Notification system does not map contact networks; instead, it stores data locally on users’ phones. Officials anticipate that greater public trust in the app will result from being able to demonstrate a causal relationship between app use and a decline in instances.
According to Health and Social Care Secretary Matt Hancock, the NHS COVID-19 App study reveals that it has been remarkably effective at severing transmission networks, averting an estimated 600,000 cases.
Stopping the transmission of the coronavirus requires isolation and knowledge of when you have been at danger; the app is the quickest approach to alert you if you are at risk.
“He wants to thank everyone who has contributed by getting and using the app, and he wants to encourage everyone who hasn’t to take the easy step to safeguard your communities and loved ones and get it.”
According to a recent report published in Nature, the app prevented thousands of deaths and an estimated 600,000 infections or approximately 20 percent of the total that would have otherwise occurred. They used two alternative methods to get to this conclusion. They calculated the benefits of quarantine by first counting the number of people who received an exposure notification and later tested positive for COVID-19. They then calculated how much the behavior of individuals who were infected and warned users changed by making an informed assumption. Second, they estimated the difference in the number of instances across U.K. regions with high app usage and those with low usage, taking socioeconomic and other regional factors into account.
Although both strategies have many benefits, it’s interesting to note that the second strategy has more advantages than the first. I have a hunch that alerts serve as a kind of early warning system for the disease that is currently spreading across one’s social network.
The majority of persons who are placed under quarantine after exposure end up not being ill, but in many cases, quarantine may have been timed to keep them from contracting COVID-19 in the first place. In other words, exposure notification technology may be considerably more successful than predicted by estimates of its immediate consequences.
According to official data, after having a close contact with a positive case, more than 1.7 million app users in England and Wales were reportedly advised to isolate themselves.
Once a user inputs a positive test result, alerts may not be issued for anywhere between 15 minutes and four hours. Without a doubt, the NHS COVID-19 app is a crucial tool in halting the coronavirus’s spread, according to Baroness Dido Harding, director of the test and trace program.
During this lockdown, the app is still protecting their vital employees, and it will continue to be crucial as we remove the restrictions placed on us by the government.
FAQ’s
NHS app
Aneurin Bevan
It was invented to be aware and notify people about the covid infection.
Yes
Nature
