More than 3,000 people in Portsmouth 'pinged' by Covid app in one week

A total of 3,261 residents received the notification on their phones in the week up to July 14 – a 33.6 per cent increase on the previous week when 2,440 had the message.

The notifications in that week also account for 14.5 per cent of all the cases in the city and were the highest weekly amount recorded since September.

Overall 22,537 isolation notifications have been sent in Portsmouth

The increase was even greater in Gosport, as 1,161 people were pinged in the week up to July 14, an 88.2 per cent rise on the week before.

In Havant there was an 57.5 increase in that time from 863 to 1,359.

And in Fareham 1,633 people were pinged in the most recent week, 48.5 per cent more than 1,000 in the week prior.

Concerns have been raised nationally over the impact on certain services and industries as workers are forced to isolate at home.

A total of 607,486 alerts were sent to people in England in the week up to July 14, up 16.8 per cent on the 521,033 recorded in the previous week to 7 July.

That was 15.4 per cent of all alerts sent since September, and a record high

To date there have been 3.94 million alerts sent.

SEE ALSO: More than 1,000 new Covid cases recorded in Hampshire

Prime minister Boris Johnson announced plans for a ‘small number’ of critical workers to be able to continue working despite being ‘pinged’ to self isolate earlier this week.

He confirmed that some key workers who have received both doses of a coronavirus vaccine will be freed from quarantine rules if they are contacted by the app, but will still have to test negative for Covid-19 to be able to attend work and take daily lateral flow tests.

People who do not qualify for exemption must continue to self-isolate if contacted by the app.

On July 20, a spokesman said: ‘It’s not a blanket exemption and my understanding is we’re not going to be producing a list covering individual sectors, these business-critical areas will be able to apply for exemptions to their host departments.’

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

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