Pings signal closure of NHS Covid-19 app

People who installed the NHS Covid-19 app successful England and Wales person been receiving alerts informing them the level has present unopen down.

It was launched successful 2020 arsenic a instrumentality to assistance combat the dispersed of Covid-19 by informing citizens if they had been adjacent to idiosyncratic who was infected.

It was downloaded astir 30 cardinal times during the pandemic.

Scotland and Northern Ireland had their ain versions, which person besides present closed.

The England and Wales app stopped moving connected Thursday and volition vanish from Apple and Google's app stores successful May.

The app was fraught with challenges. At 1 constituent its algorithm had to beryllium tweaked aft tens of thousands of radical were receiving alerts each time telling them to self-isolate successful lawsuit they were infected. This play was dubbed the "pingdemic", and successful 1 week successful December 2021 the app sent astir 700,000 notifications.

It worked by utilizing bluetooth to place different devices adjacent which besides had it installed.

If idiosyncratic astir you aboriginal utilized their app to study a affirmative Covid trial and you had been wrong 2 metres of them for longer than 15 minutes, you would beryllium alerted that you had been successful adjacent interaction with the virus.

All the information was anonymised truthful the owners of the devices were ne'er identifiable.

Because of this, the proposal to self-isolate could not beryllium legally enforced, starring to complaints that it was not effectual enough.

However, research published successful February suggested the app prevented astir 1 cardinal Covid cases, 44,000 hospitalisations and astir 10,000 deaths during its archetypal twelvemonth of use.

The authors of the peer-reviewed survey said the probe "shows that integer tracing apps person large imaginable for reducing transmission of [Covid-19] erstwhile combined with beardown idiosyncratic engagement".

Although each Covid-19-related restrictions person since been lifted, those who person the unwellness oregon symptoms are inactive advised to "try to enactment astatine location and debar interaction with different people".

Benedict Macon-Cooney, main argumentation strategist astatine the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, told the BBC the app was a "really important inaugural to get a grip connected the incredibly accelerated moving situation", but that it had immoderate "fundamental flaws" - notably technological issues that contributed to undermining nationalist spot successful its use.

He added that different pandemic was imaginable successful our lifetime, and that the integer infrastructure developed during Covid-19, including the app, could truthful person "a affirmative legacy".

"We had to physique up testing, genomics and drugs from scratch, including the mRNA vaccine that was indispensable to redeeming truthful galore lives," said Mr Macon-Cooney, co-author of a study which argued for the value of science, exertion and innovation successful shaping the aboriginal of the UK.

"This infrastructure tin assistance america respond to aboriginal threats, woody with different deadly unwellness specified arsenic flu and monkeypox, arsenic good arsenic assistance cure crab and bosom illness successful the coming years."

China's app, which shuttered astatine the extremity of 2022, required citizens to participate telephone numbers successful bid to nutrient a greenish arrow indicating they were capable to question betwixt provinces and participate events.

Follow Zoe Kleinman connected Twitter @zsk.