Trials begin on Isle of Wight of new app that alerts people if they have been near Covid-19 patient

The NHSX app will begin trials this week on the Isle of Wight before being rolled out widely later this month. It’s hoped that it will help in the battle to contain the spread of the disease.

Trasport secretary Grant Shapps said it would take a ‘huge national effort’ to ensure the idea works.

‘The idea is that we will encourage as many people to take this up as possible,’ he added. ‘This is going to be a huge national effort and we need for this to work 50-60 per cent of people to be using this app.

‘Not everybody has a smartphone, and I appreciate that for various reasons not everybody will download it but it will be the best possible way to help the NHS.’

He stressed the app would be completely confidential and insisted it would be a ‘fantastic way’ to ensure the country can ‘keep a lid’ on coronavirus and prevent a second wave.

The news comes as Mr Shapps warned Britain would not return to ‘business as usual’ this month after Boris Johnson sets out his roadmap for how the UK may come out of the coronavirus lockdown.

He told Sky's Sophy Ridge On Sunday: ‘I don't think we should expect us to go from this situation that we have at the moment of social distancing back to where we were in February – that's clearly not going to happen and I don't think anyone imagines that for one moment.

‘The most important thing is that the absolute focus of what the prime minister will be announcing later in the week is that what we do do going forward doesn't undo the brilliant work people have been doing to get that R number below 1 - the all-critical reproduction rate doesn't come back up because that's when we'd see a second spike.

‘So no I'm afraid it is definitely not going to be business as usual but we do want to make sure that people understand where the routemap lies.’

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