Even the Oxford team, which is advising NHSX on its app, say the accuracy with which Bluetooth can be a useful proxy for virus transmission risk is “currently uncertain”. The result could be a flood of false positives. He also points out that the signals pass through walls, so people behind screens and in different rooms could be unnecessarily flagged as having had contact. Ross Anderson at the University of Cambridge says the range of Bluetooth can vary greatly depending on how people hold their phones, and whether they are indoors or outdoors. “How reliable is the system to gather proximity information? The range of Bluetooth is much larger than 1.5 meters for social distancing,” they say. Bluetooth problemsĮven if it were feasible to get a high number of voluntary installations, there is the big question of whether using Bluetooth to establish a contact works well, said Katina Michael at Arizona State University and Roba Abbas at the University of Wollongong, Australia, in a joint email to New Scientist. In theory, the apps work anonymously and only store data temporarily, without collecting location. An alert could also be sent if a medical authority certifies the other person tested positive for the virus – this would be one way to avoid users trolling the system by falsely claiming symptoms. If either person later reports coronavirus symptoms, the other party is notified, so they could self-isolate or seek health advice. Once installed, they use Bluetooth low-energy (LE) technology to record when a phone has come into close proximity with anyone else using the app. The principle behind contact-tracing apps is fairly simple. The UK’s chief scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance, has indicated that he thinks such apps might have a role to play in contact tracing but that it would be a tall order to get 80 per cent of smartphone owners in the UK to use them. A simulation of a city of 1 million people by researchers at the University of Oxford, published yesterday, found that 80 per cent of smartphone users in the UK would need to install a contact-tracing app in order for it to be effective in suppressing an epidemic: that is 56 per cent of the national population. Such apps look attractive to countries looking to lift restrictions, but there is growing evidence that it will be difficult to make them work. In a rare display of collaboration, Apple and Google recently joined forces to help the technology work effectively. How useful are apps for containing coronavirus outbreaks?Īs countries search for ways to exit lockdown and avoid or manage a second wave of covid-19 cases, many have turned to the promise held by contact-tracing apps.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
January 2023
Categories |