Overcrowding, staff shortages, shielding, vaccinations, returning to the railway …

[gallafent]

I had some thoughts related to this (invalid) excuse for the evident failure of GWR to provide an adequate train service, which followed on from the “declassify first class when crowded?” thread at https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...hen-there-is-overcrowding.222240/post-5309015 …

Sadly people including train staff who’ve been working throughout the pandemic are still having to shield.

That feels like a contradiction in terms — train staff (assuming you mean on-train staff, those that actually work on the trains rather than elsewhere in the organisation) can't have been working throughout the pandemic, if they have been shielding. Separately, shielding is no longer advised at all, even for those that were advised to in earlier phases.

How to avoid catching and spreading COVID-19

Read NHS advice about how you can reduce your risk of catching COVID-19 and spreading it to other people.

www.nhs.uk

People at high risk (clinically extremely vulnerable) from coronavirus (COVID-19) are advised to follow the same guidance as everyone else. This means you are no longer advised to stay at home (shield).

This has been the case since April:

Shielding advice for the clinically extremely vulnerable to stop from April

More than 3.79 million clinically extremely vulnerable people in England will be informed they are no longer advised to shield from Thursday 1 April 2021.

www.gov.uk

More than 3.79 million clinically extremely vulnerable people in England will be informed they are no longer advised to shield from Thursday 1 April 2021.

The taxonomy is important here. I'm guessing you actually mean these staff members are self-isolating on a short-term basis (after being close to, or living with, etc., somebody that tested positive). More recently, even in those circumstances, self-isolation is often not necessary, in particular if you are fully vaccinated, which every adult in the country has now had the opportunity to be (and so in this context, if you are not, and you have to self-isolate, it has been your active choice to self-isolate, not a necessary action, since, had you been vaccinated, you would not have had to).

It's slightly complicated, and the links start here:

COVID-19 symptoms and what to do

Find out about the symptoms of COVID-19, what to do if you or your child has them and when to get medical help.

www.nhs.uk

Self-isolation rules have changed. You will not need to self-isolate in certain situations.

[…]

When you do not need to self-isolate​

If someone you live with has symptoms of COVID-19, or has tested positive for COVID-19, you will not need to self-isolate if any of the following apply:

• you're fully vaccinated – this means 14 days have passed since your final dose of a COVID-19 vaccine given by the NHS
• you're under 18 years, 6 months old
• you're taking part or have taken part in a COVID-19 vaccine trial
• you're not able to get vaccinated for medical reasons

Even if you do not have symptoms, you should still:

• get a PCR test on GOV.UK to check if you have COVID-19
• follow advice on how to avoid catching and spreading COVID-19
• consider limiting contact with people who are at higher risk from COVID-19

To my mind, this makes it strongly arguable that not to have been vaccinated (unless you fall into one of the exempt categories as per the first list in the quote immediately above) is to have chosen to make yourself unavailable to work for periods of ten days, voluntarily and unnecessarily. Whether that makes you in breach of your employment contract would be a matter for the lawyers. Standard phrases along the lines of “to be available for work except under exceptional circumstances outside your control” and so on, make that feel pretty clear from my perspective, though.

At this point, 18 months in, I'd suggest that competent rail firms should:

(a) have hired enough “extra” staff to cover in this new situation of predictably higher staff absence (potentially on fixed-term contracts if they consider that they will need fewer again in the short term). It's enough time to have done that, surely.
(b) have required all staff to be fully vaccinated (unless exempt) (and publicised this fact). I'm also surprised that this hasn't happened. It would make me as a potential passenger less unlikely to travel by train if I knew at least all the staff were protected, even if there is no mandate for passengers to be. Search for “airline vaccination mandate” for example, for the way in which another transport industry sector is moving towards this. Amtrak in the USA has already put this in place starting November 1st. Providing a weekly negative test result is an alternative with Amtrak's policy.

Too long to quote here, in summary many US corporations are now moving to a more or less strict vaccine mandate, including Amtrak as mentioned above:

https://fortune.com/2021/08/23/companies-requiring-vaccines-workers-vaccination-mandatory/

Amtrak All company employees must either be vaccinated or start getting weekly COVID tests, effective Nov. 1, per Travel + Leisure. Starting Oct. 4, all new employees will be required to show proof of vaccination before they begin their role. There will be exemptions for medical or religious reasons.

This turned out to be a longer-than-planned diversion into strategies for public-facing organisations to maintain operations and present a “safe impression” to the public, but I'm concerned that, 18 months in, rail companies still seem to be failing dramatically to maintain (even a reduced cf pre-pandemic) service, when the ways to do so have been clear for a long time, and that this (and consequently avoiding overcrowding of the type that triggered this thread) is absolutely central to getting people back onto the railway.

As a final aside, I was planning to take a train back from Marylebone the other evening a few weeks ago, I think it was the 1918 departure, and it was not at crush capacity, but all vestibules and some aisles contained standing passengers. It was full enough that I decided to bail out and took the 1930 from Paddington instead, which had plenty of seats (though was very far from empty). It feels as if some rapid adjustments are required to get the right amount of rolling stock provision for the right trains, with great changes in usage when compared to a couple of years ago. I hope the data is being gathered with great urgency to allow these changes to be made on the basis of new demand patterns!

 

[roversfan2001]

To my mind, this makes it strongly arguable that not to have been vaccinated (unless you fall into one of the exempt categories as per the first list in the quote immediately above) is to have chosen to make yourself unavailable to work for periods of ten days, voluntarily and unnecessarily. Whether that makes you in breach of your employment contract would be a matter for the lawyers. Standard phrases along the lines of “to be available for work except under exceptional circumstances outside your control” and so on, make that feel pretty clear from my perspective, though.

Nonsense.

 

[gallafent]

Nonsense.

On what basis do you say that? Are you an employment lawyer?

 

[roversfan2001]

On what basis do you say that? Are you an employment lawyer?

You don't need to be an employment lawyer to know that that entire paragraph is absolute drivel.

 

[DelayRepay]

Although they are not the railway, and therefore will probably have less hassle with the unions, I noticed that Morrisons have decided that staff who are not vaccinated will not be entitled to sick pay if they have to self-isolate due to being a close contact.

Morrisons cuts sick pay for non-jabbed workers after ‘biblical’ pandemic costs

Pay changes part of plans to mitigate supply chain crisis as company prepares to be auctioned off amid profit slump

www.theguardian.com

Potts said Morrisons was tackling the “biblical costs of managing Covid” after being on the “front foot” in helping workers stay safe during the pandemic. “We are normalising some of those policies,” he said, citing cutting sick pay for unvaccinated workers who needed to self-isolate as a good example.

He said the move was also intended to encourage workers to get themselves vaccinated.

One member of staff who contacted the Guardian said: “It feels almost like the company is coercing people into getting the jab.”

Potts said: “Seventy-one per cent of folk already have [had the vaccine] and we are all in this together.”

I would expect other employers to follow. If you legally have to isolate, and could have avoided it by being vaccinated, why should you be paid to stay at home?

 

[MikeWM]

I would expect other employers to follow. If you legally have to isolate, and could have avoided it by being vaccinated, why should you be paid to stay at home?

Though as with many things, this does rather feel like 'the thin edge of the wedge'. Why is that any different from someone needing time off because of a broken limb incurred on a skiing holiday, for example? You could have avoided that by not going skiing, we all know that many people break limbs when they go skiing.

Some (including myself!) would say that employers already have rather too much potential for overreach into the private lives and private decisions of their employees. I don't think we should welcome that going further.

 

[gallafent]

Though as with many things, this does rather feel like 'the thin edge of the wedge'. Why is that any different from someone needing time off because of a broken limb incurred on a skiing holiday, for example? You could have avoided that by not going skiing, we all know that many people break limbs when they go skiing.

I was thinking about this avenue too, and initially I felt the same level of concern. It feels seductively close but actually turns out to be very different, I think, and so I worry less about that aspect of things.

I guess that the analogy would be more accurate if:

(a) one could take a (free, recommended, widely available) vaccination against breaking a limb, before going skiing, and one chose not to do so,
(b) one generally did quite a bit of skiing in normal life (to the supermarket, to the pub, to the football, etc.),
(c) one is able to catch broken limbs from other people just by going near them (i.e. skiiing) … (because one can't tell who's got a contagiously broken limb),
(d) one has to go skiiing as part of one's job,
(e) one could unknowingly have broken a limb and consequently break customers' limbs while doing one's customer-facing job,
(f) etc.

— deliberately framed for entertainment, but I think that shows how different the two cases are.

I would expect other employers to follow. If you legally have to isolate, and could have avoided it by being vaccinated, why should you be paid to stay at home?

So would I. Exactly. And sooner or later a big one in the UK will follow those in the (notoriously litigious) USA and start to introduce mandatory vaccination, probably initially for new hires, but then as a condition of continued employment. If you don't want to be vaccinated, that is, of course, your choice, but the consequences of your action may well be to exclude you from many jobs, in order to protect your colleagues and customers from you, and your (potential) employer from the consequences of you, or someone you infect, getting ill.

 

[Domh245]

Though as with many things, this does rather feel like 'the thin edge of the wedge'. Why is that any different from someone needing time off because of a broken limb incurred on a skiing holiday, for example? You could have avoided that by not going skiing, we all know that many people break limbs when they go skiing.

Whilst that's a valid concern, my take on it is more along the lines of "why are we still asking people who've been identified as a close contact to isolate"* - we should be well past the point of tracking, tracing and isolating contacts of people who caught it, we should be in a place where people go about their lives and (ideally) voluntarily isolating if they're feeling under the weather, regardless of what they've caught.

 

[MikeWM]

I was thinking about this avenue too, and initially I felt the same level of concern. It feels seductively close but actually turns out to be very different, I think, and so I worry less about that aspect of things.

But I think we're at risk of muddling up two things here.

- That the unvaccinated employee is going to be forced to miss work because of a choice they make in their personal life.
- That the unvaccinated employee is causing risk to others they are in contact with.

The first of those things is really rather like the skiing example.

The second may have some degree of merit - *if* the vaccinations prevented catching the disease or transmitting it. But they don't - on average they reduce severity of the disease *for you* (so the first case again), but that's all.

Whilst that's a valid concern, my take on it is more along the lines of "why are we still asking people who've been identified as a close contact to isolate"* - we should be well past the point of tracking, tracing and isolating contacts of people who caught it, we should be in a place where people go about their lives and (ideally) voluntarily isolating if they're feeling under the weather, regardless of what they've caught.

Well, of course I agree with that entirely. And with what we now know about the vaccines, there is no epidemological reason that vaccinated and unvaccinated people should be treated differently as to their risk to passing the disease onto others. Indeed - as I recently speculated in another thread - given the vaccines on average reduce the symptoms of the disease, it's quite possible that vaccinated people are out and about and spreading the disease, whereas if they weren't vaccinated they'd feel bad enough to stay at home!

But the government appear to want to try pretty much every avenue of coercion to get people vaccinated, short of actually making it an explicit legal reqiuirement. It would be preferable if businesses pushed back on the government on things like this rather than going along with it - and unnecessarily alienating part of their workforce in the process.

It does feel like, for all the masses of kind words said about them over the last 18 months, 'key workers' are only actually appreciated by the Government as long as they do what they're told to do.

 

[gallafent]

The second may have some degree of merit - *if* the vaccinations prevented catching the disease or transmitting it. But they don't - on average they reduce severity of the disease *for you* (so the first case again), but that's all.

I believe two of those three assertions are false.

The vaccines do make it less likely that you'll contract the disease; they make it less serious in the event that you do contract it (as you say); and they do make you less likely to spread it.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...eceived-one-or-more-doses-of-covid-19-vaccine :

If you have been vaccinated with a COVID-19 vaccine, you are less likely to catch COVID-19, and to become severely ill if you do catch it. You are also less likely to spread COVID-19 to other people, but it is still possible for this to happen.

Unfortunately there isn't a direct citation there of the research that backs up this statement, if you have some that back up your assertion that the above quote is false (in two ways), it would be interesting to cite it here, and if you like I can dig out some of the key results that indicate the reduced likelihood of contracting the disease, and the reduced likelihood of transmission …

 

[DelayRepay]

But I think we're at risk of muddling up two things here.

- That the unvaccinated employee is going to be forced to miss work because of a choice they make in their personal life.
- That the unvaccinated employee is causing risk to others they are in contact with.

That's a good point - it is the Government that has decided that unvaccinated workers have to miss work if they're a close contact. Morrisons are saying they won't pay those people sick pay. And, to be honest it's always been a bit odd that we've used sick pay in these circumstances as most people isolating are not actually sick (or even infectious).

I don't believe having different isolation rules for the unvaccinated is justified, but I sympathise with Morrisons position.

 

[MikeWM]

I believe two of those three assertions are false.

The vaccines do make it less likely that you'll contract the disease;

That doesn't appear to be the case from the Government's own figures. Here's a graph from the latest surveillance report from Public Health England (which can be found here).



That really doesn't much look like the vaccinated are being protected from getting the disease compared to the unvaccinated.

Now I'm not sure why there is the difference as you move along age bands (I've seen speculation about population estimates being less accurate for some groups than others, though I'm not clear why that would be).

they make it less serious in the event that you do contract it (as you say);

Indeed, and the PHE report makes that clear too.

and they do make you less likely to spread it.

There have been a number of studies recently showing viral load in 'breakthrough' cases in the vaccinated is equal to, or indeed greater than, cases in the unvaccinated. And viral load is probably the best indicator we have as to how infectious someone is.

As we're quoting the government, here's one from the CDC in the USA:

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7031e2.htm

[PCR] Cycle threshold values were similar among specimens from patients who were fully vaccinated and those who were not.

Or, here's a recent one from England

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/08/19/double-jabbed-people-carry-levels-covid-unvaccinated/

Double-jabbed people carry same levels of Covid as unvaccinated

 

[Horizon22]

That doesn't appear to be the case from the Government's own figures. Here's a graph from the latest surveillance report from Public Health England (which can be found here).

View attachment 102604

That really doesn't much look like the vaccinated are being protected from getting the disease compared to the unvaccinated.

Now I'm not sure why there is the difference as you move along age bands (I've seen speculation about population estimates being less accurate for some groups than others, though I'm not clear why that would be).



Indeed, and the PHE report makes that clear too.

With that graph, surely there's a statistical issue in that anyone over 50 is highly likely to be doubly vaccinated. Therefore the unvaccinated numbers are relatively small samples and the numbers will trend towards the average for the vaccinated. Also those unvaccinated in those age groups might be clinically unable to be vaccinated and could be less socially active anyway, hence the lower rates. There's still significant number of people <50 unvaccinated and therefore evidence that those people are generally more susceptible to cases.

 

[Dent]

That doesn't appear to be the case from the Government's own figures. Here's a graph from the latest surveillance report from Public Health England (which can be found here).

View attachment 102604

That really doesn't much look like the vaccinated are being protected from getting the disease compared to the unvaccinated.

Are those figures per 100,000 of the vaccinated/unvaccinated population, or of the total population? Without knowing what the denominators are we don't know what the graph shows.

 

[MikeWM]

To be clear (perhaps?!), it's a graph of table 4 in that same report:



It says that 'The rate of COVID-19 cases, hospitalisation, and deaths in fully vaccinated and unvaccinated groups was calculated using vaccine coverage data for each age group extracted from the National Immunisation Management Service.'

I suppose one potential issue would be if that coverage data wasn't correct (eg. like the nonsense 100%+ figures we get for certain age groups that have been vaccinated).

 

[Watershed]

Are those figures per 100,000 of the vaccinated/unvaccinated population, or of the total population? Without knowing what the denominators are we don't know what the graph shows.

They are per 100,000 of the relevant population. Data per 100,000 of the total population would be completely meaningless given the figures at hand.

 

[Adam Williams]

Why is that any different from someone needing time off because of a broken limb incurred on a skiing holiday, for example? You could have avoided that by not going skiing, we all know that many people break limbs when they go skiing.

Many employers already choose not to pay full sick pay in those circumstances. E.g. from a previous contract back when I was a permie:

 

[35B]

They are per 100,000 of the relevant population. Data per 100,000 of the total population would be completely meaningless given the figures at hand.

There is also a serious question about the population counts underlying this analysis - I forget the details, but have seen completely different conclusions drawn by taking an alternative (and legitimate) view of population count.

Though as with many things, this does rather feel like 'the thin edge of the wedge'. Why is that any different from someone needing time off because of a broken limb incurred on a skiing holiday, for example? You could have avoided that by not going skiing, we all know that many people break limbs when they go skiing.

Some (including myself!) would say that employers already have rather too much potential for overreach into the private lives and private decisions of their employees. I don't think we should welcome that going further.

That presumes that they would, on that particular policy, get sick pay - as @Adam Williams posts above, many corporate policies (which are typically insurance backed) carry exclusions for self-inflicted absence*. It'd therefore be interesting to turn that question round - why are those who are forced into taking time off due to Covid being treated more favourably than others?

When answering, bear in mind that many firms have been leaned upon to extend CSP policies to cover staff ordered to self-isolate, and were criticised because not paying CSP to hourly paid employees created a powerful disincentive to obeying the requirement to self-isolate.

* - I've just checked my position (bearing in mind that I've never skied and have no desire to do so!). I wouldn't automatically get CSP if I had a ski accident that caused me to be long term sick, but would be covered for loss of pay on the travel insurance policy that I receive as an employment benefit.

 

[Bantamzen]

Many employers already choose not to pay full sick pay in those circumstances. E.g. from a previous contract:

View attachment 102608

So no going out in the sun, drinking, or exercising then? Sounds like HR had regular competitions on how to effectively ban anything remotely fun. They were probably only weeks away from including smoking (though why that's not included?), spicy food, computer games & going to gigs. The office parties there must have been a blast....

 

[MikeWM]

That presumes that they would, on that particular policy, get sick pay - as @Adam Williams posts above, many corporate policies (which are typically insurance backed) carry exclusions for self-inflicted absence*. It'd therefore be interesting to turn that question round - why are those who are forced into taking time off due to Covid being treated more favourably than others?

I'd say because it is an extraordinary and totally unprecedented state of affairs that healthy people, who want to go to work, are being legally prevented by the Government from doing so.

(From what I understand of Morrisons policy, if the employee is actually off work *due to symptomatic Covid*, they'll still be paid sick pay, vaccinated or not...)

 

[gallafent]

That doesn't appear to be the case from the Government's own figures. Here's a graph from the latest surveillance report from Public Health England (which can be found here).

View attachment 102604

That really doesn't much look like the vaccinated are being protected from getting the disease compared to the unvaccinated.

No, it doesn't. And that's because it's the wrong data to look at to determine vaccine effectiveness. To quote from the text of the section containing the latest population data, which is just above those tables and graphs:

Interpretation of the data

These data should be considered in the context of vaccination status of the population groups shown in the rest of this report. The vaccination status of cases, inpatients and deaths is not the most appropriate method to assess vaccine effectiveness and there is a high risk of misinterpretation. Vaccine effectiveness has been formally estimated from a number of different sources and is described earlier in this report.

From earlier in the report, re vaccine effectiveness against infection:

With the Pfizer-BioNTech, estimates of effectiveness against infection range from around 55 to 70%, with the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine they range from around 60 to 70% (5, 13, 14, 15). With 2 of 2 doses of either vaccine effectiveness against infection is estimated at around 65 to 90% (5, 13).

There are similarly positive numbers against other measures (symptomatic disease, hospitalisation, mortality, transmission).

I won't carry on and quote the whole report piecemeal here (thanks for inserting the direct link above! , to muddy the waters further but I think this table is quite instructive:


Although there hasn't been enough time elapsed yet for a lot of the 2-dose data to arrive, and likewise the transmission data isn't yet plentiful enough, the estimates indicate the way the wind is blowing. It will be interesting to see how the other vaccines compare too, once there are enough of those in the wild.

There have been a number of studies recently showing viral load in 'breakthrough' cases in the vaccinated is equal to, or indeed greater than, cases in the unvaccinated. And viral load is probably the best indicator we have as to how infectious someone is.

There are also studies which suggest this isn't the case — https://spiral.imperial.ac.uk/handle/10044/1/90800 for example, discussed in more accessible way at https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02187-1 , which is a study that tests the population at random (including asymptomatic cases that were tested without knowing they were infected, vs taking data from tests which were taken by people that thought they might be, which is going to be a very skewed self-selected sample). From the nature summary:

One massive analysis of Delta transmission comes from the UK REACT-1 programme, led by a team at Imperial College London, which tests more than 100,000 UK volunteers every few weeks. The team ran Ct analyses for samples received in May, June and July, when Delta was rapidly replacing other variants to become the dominant driver of COVID-19 in the country. The results suggested that among people testing positive, those who had been vaccinated had a lower viral load on average than did unvaccinated people. Paul Elliott, an epidemiologist at Imperial, says that these results differ from other Ct studies because this study sampled the population at random and included people who tested positive without showing symptoms.

 

[Watershed]

Although there hasn't been enough time elapsed yet for a lot of the 2-dose data to arrive, and likewise the transmission data isn't yet plentiful enough, the estimates indicate the way the wind is blowing. It will be interesting to see how the other vaccines compare too, once there are enough of those in the wild.

Importantly, that table relates to the "period when the Alpha variant dominated". The Delta variant changes the situation substantially, and therefore conclusions cannot be drawn across from the vaccines' significant effectiveness against the Alpha variant.

 

[MikeWM]

No, it doesn't. And that's because it's the wrong data to look at to determine vaccine effectiveness. To quote from the text of the section containing the latest population data, which is just above those tables and graphs:

But if you read the following paragraph, it seems fairly clear to me they're referring to the 'look, there are more X in the vaccinated than the unvaccinated' crowd who don't realise (or don't want to realise) that this is due to there being more in one group than the other to begin with.

In the context of very high vaccine coverage in the population, even with a highly effective vaccine, it is expected that a large proportion of cases, hospitalisations and deaths would occur in vaccinated individuals, simply because a larger proportion of the population are vaccinated than unvaccinated and no vaccine is 100% effective.

(I don't like misuse of statistics, whether it is by people I largely agree with or not!)

From earlier in the report, re vaccine effectiveness against infection:

There are similarly positive numbers against other measures (symptomatic disease, hospitalisation, mortality, transmission).

I won't carry on and quote the whole report piecemeal here (thanks for inserting the direct link above! , to muddy the waters further but I think this table is quite instructive:

But I think you're missing the fact that most of this data refers to the Alpha variant, which is basically irrelevant now. They make that clear on page 5, and indeed in the title of the graph you've posted.

The majority of this data relates to a period when the main circulating virus was the Alpha variant, emerging data on effectiveness against symptomatic disease with the Delta variant is also summarised below.

There are also studies which suggest this isn't the case — https://spiral.imperial.ac.uk/handle/10044/1/90800 for example, discussed in more accessible way at https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02187-1 , which is a study that tests the population at random (including asymptomatic cases that were tested without knowing they were infected, vs taking data from tests which were taken by people that thought they might be, which is going to be a very skewed self-selected sample). From the nature summary:

There are indeed various studies on this that have reached different conclusions. That article refers to 4 studies that basically say equal viral load and 1 study that doesn't. I'm not sure why Imperial think that their methodology apparently results in a more accurate result than the 4 others - perhaps it has, but we'd need rather more data before we can conclude that.

 

[Horizon22]

So no going out in the sun, drinking, or exercising then? Sounds like HR had regular competitions on how to effectively ban anything remotely fun. They were probably only weeks away from including smoking (though why that's not included?), spicy food, computer games & going to gigs. The office parties there must have been a blast....

Yes but in reality, how are they going to prove any of those things? You're not doing house visits until normally weeks after the event. It would be written off as a "heavy cold" or something else.

 

[RailExplorer]

My TOC no longer pays people voluntarily self isolating - from a “ping” for example or a close contact. if you are vaccinated you are legally not required to isolate, and if are unvaccinated and are supposed isolate, the TOC won’t pay sick pay. Mandatory self isolation if contacted by track and trace for example or if you have covid itself is still paid (in the latter case you are actually sick so even Morrison’s would have to pay any sick pay due). Anyone walking around unvaccinated with the “ping” app need to come to their senses fast - delete the app. Actually, anyone walking around with the ping app, vaccinated or unvaccinated needs to look in the mirror and ask why.

 

[gallafent]

Actually, anyone walking around with the ping app, vaccinated or unvaccinated needs to look in the mirror and ask why.

… to alert them as early as possible to likely exposure so that they can do the responsible thing, by immediately getting tested / avoiding contact with other people (until negative test result received), in order to protect people near them, society in general, and indeed themselves?

That's why I have it.

 

[Cdd89]

… to alert them as early as possible to likely exposure so that they can do the responsible thing, by immediately getting tested / avoiding contact with other people (until negative test result received), in order to protect people near them, society in general, and indeed themselves?

That's why I have it.

Although it’s getting less effective at that by the day, since some will be actively uninstalling it, and others won’t be reinstalling it as they replace phones, since it is no longer required for entry to businesses/venues.

 

[seagull]

… to alert them as early as possible to likely exposure so that they can do the responsible thing, by immediately getting tested / avoiding contact with other people (until negative test result received), in order to protect people near them, society in general, and indeed themselves?

That's why I have it.

Just like people used to do when they got flu.

Oh, wait ..

 

[greyman42]

… to alert them as early as possible to likely exposure so that they can do the responsible thing, by immediately getting tested / avoiding contact with other people (until negative test result received), in order to protect people near them, society in general, and indeed themselves?

Perhaps. Or perhaps so they can have more time of work on the sick.

 

[35B]

… to alert them as early as possible to likely exposure so that they can do the responsible thing, by immediately getting tested / avoiding contact with other people (until negative test result received), in order to protect people near them, society in general, and indeed themselves?

That's why I have it.

I was with you to that point - I uninstalled the app several months ago when I came to the conclusion that the risk of being made to isolate due to a false positive connection far outweighed the benefit of mitigating my risk from the disease or of sharing it.

I do record my details correctly where asked to track and trace, but because I believe that contact tracing needs to be based on real risk rather than arbitrary technological assessments in all but the worst of circumstances.