Analysis: Growing mistakes means asking questions about leadership
Written by Roland Manthorpe, Technology Reporter
After a tumultuous start, the contact tracing app appears to have found its feet, rapidly climbing to 19 million downloads. Just last week, a senior source in the Ministry of Health and Welfare told me that they were “very happy” with the progress made.
This latest news calls the progress into question. If the app sends very few alerts because the risk limit is incorrectly set at a very high level, what protection did it offer? None: Some alerts were sent. But at a time when protection was badly needed, the app was not stressing itself
I understand this software bug was incredibly human. The risk threshold was supposed to be changed prior to launch but for some reason no one made the critical update. Testing and tracking went on for weeks as if the change had happened.
Of course these things happen, but in the case of the application, they happened a lot. Two weeks after launch, he only sent one alert around. Anyone requesting isolation by it He still cannot claim income support Even if they qualify for it.
The news also calls into question the communications from testing and tracing. For weeks, people had been complaining about messages from the app telling them they were near someone with Covid-19. First, the Ministry of Health said there was no problem, then it released a fix telling people not to worry.
It turns out that due to this bug, many of these alerts should have directed people to isolate.
It comes at a time when the virus is spreading rapidly, and that is a big mistake. I understand Matt Hancock and Dido Harding were just as ignorant about it as everyone else. However, questions about their leadership may be asked when errors of this nature continue to occur.
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