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COVID-19 digital contact tracing worked — heed the lessons for future pandemics (www.nature.com)

submitted 2 years ago by somefool to c/technology

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[–] ReallyActuallyFrankenstein@lemmynsfw.com 14 points 2 years ago (3 children)

These estimated that, in just three months, the app prevented 284,000 or 594,000 cases, respectively — despite only 28% of the population in those regions using it. The study also suggested that for every 1% increment in app usage, the number of cases could be reduced by 0.8% and 2.3%, respectively.

The most compelling evidence yet, however, comes from an analysis published earlier this year of the usage and impact of the NHS COVID-19 app in its first year of deployment10. It found that the app prevented around one million infections and saved more than 9,600 lives in England and Wales between September 2020 and September 2021. And it achieved this even though, on average over the year, only around 25% of the population was using it (see ‘What the data say’).

Honestly, I did think the contact exposure apps were a failure. I almost never got notifications, despite leaving them always on, and legitimately it sounds like adoption was low. But it sounds like they were still having a noticeable effect.

[–] edent@lemmy.one 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I worked on the NHS Contact Tracing app. One of the worries was, if the alerts were too frequent, people would ignore them. There was a delicate balance between relevant notifications and "alert fatigue".

[–] mobyduck648 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Damn I’d love to have been a fly on that particular wall when the pandemic was happening, what was going on with the first app for example? I remember the government pushing ahead with it even though Apple didn’t permit bluetooth to be used in the way they wanted before admitting defeat and using the native mechanism for it anyway.

[–] prole 1 points 2 years ago

Imagine how well it would have worked if more people used it.

To everyone in this thread harping on potential privacy issues: how about the very real reality of several million dead people? Literal decimation of the population of the planet (by the original definition of the word). Should we just say "fuck them" because of some possible boogeyman?

[–] Spellinbee 1 points 2 years ago

I thought the same thing. I kept mine on and literally did not get a single notice. I'm glad that it seems to have helped some though.