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Tom do you know if anyone has told the developers of the useless Australian app about this?

by danieltillett 6y ago

brutusborn 6y ago
Why do you say it is useless?
- danieltillett 6y ago
  Because it doesn’t work on iOS. Given the Australian market is 50% iOS this kind of defeats the purpose. We really should just dump the worthless app we have and just use the NHS version.
  - brutusborn 6y ago
    These [1] people disagree. Can you commment? Personally I don't know enough to judge myself. [1] https://www.scimex.org/newsfeed/expert-reaction-covidsafe-app-released,-but-does-it-work-on-iphones https://www.scimex.org/newsfeed/expert-reaction-covidsafe-ap...
    - danieltillett 6y ago
      No they don’t. They are all saying it doesn’t work when the app is in the background on iOS. This makes the app worthless on iOS as nobody it going to walk around with the app in the foreground the whole time. The NHS app appears to solve this problem.
      - brutusborn 6y ago
        Ahhh that makes sense, thanks for the clarification.
tomduncalf 6y ago
I’d be amazed if they weren’t aware of it. It does sound like they’ve found ways round some of the issues. Whether it is worth the trade offs vs the Google/Apple system remains to be seen, but the fact that they’ve released the source already and people smarter than me seem impressed is a better situation than I expected it to be in. Also good to hear they may be open to switching to the Apple/Google way if needed. Hopefully contact tracing apps prove to be helpful given the amount of hope being put in them!
- danieltillett 6y ago
  Yes. There seems to be a huge amount of hope invested in these apps with little evidence they will make much difference.
  - chimprich 6y ago
    Given the human and economic cost of this virus, "not much" difference in R could still make it worth it. It's supposed to be complement human tracing and social distancing, not control the virus spread on its own. If it allows you to reopen some business sectors, say, half a week earlier, I can't imagine that wouldn't pay for the resources invested in the app. There has been some modelling carried out that suggests use of the app would be worth it, but even with a level of uncertainty it seems like it's worth trying.
    - tomduncalf 6y ago
      Absolutely agree!
    - g_p 6y ago
      There's one other angle too here - a future version of the UK app will give people feedback on their level of distancing via a "social mixing score", which is basically the number of unique people they were recorded as being in contact with per day. This looks like it will give people an idea of "You were close to X people today, and really close to Y people". "Close" will be locally determined, probably based on the RSSI model and duration of contact. This will give people feedback on how well they are distancing. There's a lot of research which shows people struggle to know if they are doing well without feedback, and that people's perception of how well they can do it will influence if they try. Couple this with a differential privacy daily voluntary "upload" (add a random, zero-mean number sampled from a normal distribution to their daily number) and people can find out if they're doing well, or if others are reducing contact more. NHS also gets an idea of average number of contacts and close contacts, and nobody actually needs to reveal their own number.

Tom do you know if anyone has told the developers of the useless Australian app about this?

brutusborn 6y ago

Why do you say it is useless?

danieltillett 6y ago
Because it doesn’t work on iOS. Given the Australian market is 50% iOS this kind of defeats the purpose. We really should just dump the worthless app we have and just use the NHS version.
- brutusborn 6y ago
  These [1] people disagree. Can you commment? Personally I don't know enough to judge myself. [1] https://www.scimex.org/newsfeed/expert-reaction-covidsafe-app-released,-but-does-it-work-on-iphones https://www.scimex.org/newsfeed/expert-reaction-covidsafe-ap...
  - danieltillett 6y ago
    No they don’t. They are all saying it doesn’t work when the app is in the background on iOS. This makes the app worthless on iOS as nobody it going to walk around with the app in the foreground the whole time. The NHS app appears to solve this problem.
    - brutusborn 6y ago
      Ahhh that makes sense, thanks for the clarification.

tomduncalf 6y ago

I’d be amazed if they weren’t aware of it. It does sound like they’ve found ways round some of the issues. Whether it is worth the trade offs vs the Google/Apple system remains to be seen, but the fact that they’ve released the source already and people smarter than me seem impressed is a better situation than I expected it to be in. Also good to hear they may be open to switching to the Apple/Google way if needed. Hopefully contact tracing apps prove to be helpful given the amount of hope being put in them!

danieltillett 6y ago
Yes. There seems to be a huge amount of hope invested in these apps with little evidence they will make much difference.
- chimprich 6y ago
  Given the human and economic cost of this virus, "not much" difference in R could still make it worth it. It's supposed to be complement human tracing and social distancing, not control the virus spread on its own. If it allows you to reopen some business sectors, say, half a week earlier, I can't imagine that wouldn't pay for the resources invested in the app. There has been some modelling carried out that suggests use of the app would be worth it, but even with a level of uncertainty it seems like it's worth trying.
  - tomduncalf 6y ago
    Absolutely agree!
  - g_p 6y ago
    There's one other angle too here - a future version of the UK app will give people feedback on their level of distancing via a "social mixing score", which is basically the number of unique people they were recorded as being in contact with per day. This looks like it will give people an idea of "You were close to X people today, and really close to Y people". "Close" will be locally determined, probably based on the RSSI model and duration of contact. This will give people feedback on how well they are distancing. There's a lot of research which shows people struggle to know if they are doing well without feedback, and that people's perception of how well they can do it will influence if they try. Couple this with a differential privacy daily voluntary "upload" (add a random, zero-mean number sampled from a normal distribution to their daily number) and people can find out if they're doing well, or if others are reducing contact more. NHS also gets an idea of average number of contacts and close contacts, and nobody actually needs to reveal their own number.