What is the point of the Covid-19 app? Ministers seem to be as in the dark about the answer to this question as the rest of us, with the government tying itself in knots over whether it means anything at all to get ‘pinged’ and told to self-isolate.
Downing Street has contradicted Business Minister Paul Scully, who said this morning that there was no need to self-isolate if it was just the app that alerted you. He told Times Radio:
It seems that there is a genuine schism in Whitehall
‘The app is there to give…to allow you to make informed decisions. And I think by backing out of mandating a lot of things, we’re encouraging people to really get the data in their own hands to be able to make decisions on what’s best for them, whether they’re an employer or an employee.’
But a couple of hours later, a No. 10 spokeswoman insisted that isolation was ‘the most important action people can take’, adding:
‘Given the risk of having and spreading the virus when people have been in contact with someone with Covid, it is crucial people isolate when they are told to do so, either by NHS Test and Trace or by the NHS Covid app.
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