Coronavirus: UK launches tracking application

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England launches this Thursday, May 28, a coronavirus tracking system which should allow to find recent contacts of people with the virus so that they isolate themselves. The British government has recruited 25,000 "tracers" to track down the contacts of 10,000 patients a day in an effort to control the spread of the virus and lift restrictions nationwide to move towards more localized measures. However, the application that was to accompany this system will not be added until later, at the risk of reducing the effectiveness of the program.

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From our correspondent in London ,   Muriel Delcroix

For the moment, this system is voluntary: each patient who tests positive is now invited to communicate a list of all the people with whom he has been in direct contact for fifteen minutes or more and less than two meters away in the last 48 hours.

A team of "tracers" is then responsible for tracing these contacts by asking them in turn to confine themselves for fourteen days, whether they have symptoms or not. The Prime Minister assured that this system would "  change people's lives  " after more than two months of confinement. However, the smartphone application on which this device was to be based is not yet available. It is still being tested on the Isle of Wight without the government specifying whether it will work and when it will be widely used.

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Scientists believe that without this application, the effectiveness of the tracing system will be reduced and detractors of Boris Johnson suspect him of having advanced the launch of the system for diversion while his special adviser Dominic Cummings is at the heart of a storm after breaking the containment.

For a week, Boris Johnson refuses to dismiss his right arm and seems for the moment to have succeeded in stopping the revolt in spite of the general anger…

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• United Kingdom
• Coronavirus
• Boris Johnson