Back in mid-August the Isle of Wight was chosen to trial a second Coronavirus Test and Trace App for the UK Government. One week after launch the Managing Director of the App, Simon Thompson, claimed thousands of Islanders had installed the App on their phones.
He didn’t offer any public proof, so News OnTheWight started the pursuing the numbers of downloads, installs and detections.
Public interest questions
That was almost five weeks ago, but the Test and Trace Team have consistently failed to provide answers to these public interest questions. It only seemed reasonable that these numbers be shared with Islanders that were being used as guinea pigs for the App again.
Even Isle of Wight MP, Bob Seely, is being kept in the dark, despite requesting to see the numbers nearly three weeks ago, with his office assuring News OnTheWight that they will “keep a chase on this and keep you updated”.
Background
Launched on the Island on 13th August, this is the second Contact Tracing App being trialed by Islanders.
The first trial launched in May, when it was first claimed that over 55,000 had downloaded the NHSX version of the App. It was dropped suddenly in mid-June after the App had not been updated for over four weeks, and Islanders were kept in the dark about its effectiveness.
The App is due to be rolled out across the country tomorrow (Thursday).
Image: Daniel Mingook Kim under CC BY 2.0
