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More than 10 million people have downloaded the NHS contact-tracing app since it launched on Thursday, despite it suffering a problem that left tens of thousands of test results unlogged.
The app, which Health Secretary Matt Hancock described as an “important step forward” in tackling COVID-19, had been downloaded six million times on its first day and 10 million by Sunday, the Department of Health said.

Mr Hancock described the figures as an “absolutely fantastic” response.

Is the NHS app up to the job?

But download numbers aside, the app has had a less-than-fantastic start.
Mr Hancock’s comments were made a day after an important fix for the app was rolled out – it solved an issue that had prevented users in England from being able log test results.

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On Friday, the app’s developers admitted it had not been able to link more than 60,000 coronavirus tests carried out that day – just under a third of England’s total – to its systems.

They confirmed the glitch after one user tweeted that he was being asked to enter a code he did not have in order to log his result.

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The app includes a link to enter a code that people should receive via email or text message from the testing service when their result comes through.
It asks users to self-isolate for 14 days if it detects they have spent 15 minutes or more in close proximity to someone who has tested positive.
But before the glitch was solved, it was only human contact tracers who could reach out out to those affected by someone testing positive in an NHS hospital, Public Health England lab, or through a surveillance study.

Image: The contact tracing app alerts users via Bluetooth technology
The glitch appeared to undermine the app’s central role of warning people of previous contact with a positive case.
While anyone in England and Wales can download the app, the problem existed only in England.
In a statement released on Saturday, a health department spokesperson implied it was solved, saying anyone with a positive test result can now log their result on the app.
“A minority of people, such as hospital patients, who were unable to log their positive result can now request a code when contacted by NHS Test and Trace to input on their app,” the statement read.
But as of Sunday, people who book a test outside the app still could not log negative results.

App ‘makes the UK safer’

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Regarding other app features, Mr Hancock said more than 1.5 million venue check-ins were recorded on Saturday.
More than 460,000 businesses had downloaded and printed QR code posters that can be scanned to check-in. These QR codes allow contact tracers to reach multiple people if an outbreak is found.
Mr Hancock described the “enthusiastic response” of over 10 million downloads in a few days as “a strong start” and “absolutely fantastic,” but called on more businesses and people to follow suit.
“The more of us who download it the more effective it will be,” he said.

Half a million sharks could be killed for their natural oil to produce coronavirus vaccines, according to conservationists.
One ingredient used in some COVID-19 vaccine candidates is squalene, a natural oil made in the liver of sharks.

Squalene is currently used as an adjuvant in medicine – an ingredient that increases the effectiveness of a vaccine by creating a stronger immune response.

Image: Scientists are testing synthetic alternatives to avoid threatening shark populations
British pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline currently uses shark squalene in flu vaccines.
The company said it would manufacture a billion doses of this adjuvant for potential use in coronavirus vaccines in May.

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Around 3,000 sharks are needed to extract one tonne of squalene.

Shark Allies, a California-based group, suggests that if the world’s population received one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine containing the liver oil, around 250,000 sharks would need to be slaughtered, depending on the amount of squalene used.

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If two doses are needed to immunise the global population, which is likely according to researchers, this would increase to half a million.
To avoid threatening shark populations, scientists are testing an alternative to squalene – a synthetic version made from fermented sugar cane.

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Stefanie Brendl, founder and executive director of Shark Allies, said: “Harvesting something from a wild animal is never going to be sustainable, especially if it’s a top predator that doesn’t reproduce in huge numbers.
“There’s so many unknowns of how big and how long this pandemic might go on, and then how many versions of it we have to go through, that if we continue using sharks, the numbers of sharks taken for this product could be really high, year after year after year.”
According to estimates made by conservationists, around three million sharks are killed every year for squalene, which is also used in cosmetics and machine oil.
There are fears that a sudden rise in demand for the liver oil could threaten populations and see more species become endangered as many species rich in squalene, such as the gulper shark, are already vulnerable.

Texas officials have warned thousands of residents of a city in the state about using tap water after a deadly brain-eating microbe was found in the water supply.
Tests were carried out on the system and confirmed the presence of Naegleria fowleri in Lake Jackson after a six-year-old boy contracted the microbe and died earlier this month, city manager Modesto Mundo told reporters on Saturday.

Officials believe the amoeba entered Josiah McIntyre’s body at a splash park in the city, or from a hose in the family home.

Image: The amoeba is regularly fatal in the people it infects
Until the water supply has been disinfected and tests show it is safe to use again, city residents have been told to boil tap water before drinking it and using it for cooking.
They have also been advised to take other measures, including ensuring water does not go up their nose while bathing, showering or washing their faces.

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Families have also been warned not to allow children to play with hoses, sprinklers, or any toy or device that may accidentally squirt water up the nose.

Eight communities had initially been warned on Friday not to use tap water for any reason except to flush toilets, while authorities distributed bottles of water to households.

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Officials lifted that warning on Saturday, but the advice on boiling water remains in place for Lake Jackson’s 27,000-plus residents.
Josiah’s mother, Maria Castillo, said her son died at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston on 8 September, and that doctors told her the cause was the brain-eating amoeba, NBC News reported.
She said her son was “super active” and “loved to be outside and loved playing baseball”.

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Naegleria fowleri is commonly found in warm freshwater and soil, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It usually infects people when contaminated water enters the body through the nose.
From there it travels to the brain and can cause a rare and debilitating disease called primary amebic meningoencephalitis. The infection is usually fatal.
Contamination of public water systems in the US by the microbe is rare but not unheard of.
The first deaths from the microbe after it was found in tap water occurred in southern Louisiana in 2011 and 2013, according to the CDC’s website.
According to the CDC there were only 34 infections across the entirety of the US from 2009 to 2018, the majority of which came from recreational water areas.
However it highly fatal. Of the 145 people infected between 1962 and 2018, only four survived.

A problem that prevented tens of thousands of people from logging the result of their coronavirus tests on the new NHS contact-tracing app has been fixed, according to a Department of Health spokesman.
In a statement, they said: “Everyone who receives a positive test result can log their result on the app.

“A minority of people, such as hospital patients, who were unable to log their positive result can now request a code when contacted by NHS Test and Trace to input on their app.”
It came after the app’s developers admitted it had not been able to link more than 60,000 coronavirus tests carried out in England on Friday – just under a third of the total – to its systems.

Image: This was the NHS app response to the issue, raised by a user on Twitter
The admission had appeared to undermine the central role of the software, which is to warn people when they have come into contact with anyone who subsequently tests positive.

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The long-awaited NHS COVID-19 contact-tracing app launched on Thursday across England and Wales.

However, in a response to a tweet on Friday by a user who said they had been tested but could not upload the result because they had not received a code, the app’s developers said it was not linked to test results processed in Public Health England labs or NHS hospitals.

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“If your test took place in a Public Health England lab or NHS hospital, or as part of national surveillance testing conducted by the Office for National Statistics, test results cannot currently be linked with the app whether they’re positive or negative,” they wrote.

Official government figures show a total of 210,275 people were tested in England on Friday, including 61,481 in hospitals and PHE labs (Pillar 1) and 148,894 in testing centres (Pillar 2).
The admission on the app’s official Twitter account would have meant the results of just under a third (29%) of the tests carried out a day after the app went live could not be linked.
An earlier statement from the Department of Health said: “We are urgently working to enable positive tests for people who aren’t already given a code to be added to the COVID-19 app.
“NHS Test and Trace will continue to contact people by text, email or phone if your test is positive advising you to self-isolate and for those who don’t have a code, the contact tracers will shortly be able to provide codes to insert in the app.
“If you book your test via the app the results will be automatically recorded in the app and the isolation countdown will be updated.”

Your questions answered on new contact-tracing app

Labour’s Jonathan Ashworth had raised the issue on social media.
The shadow health secretary tweeted: “We all want to see this app succeed. We’ve encouraged people to download it.
“But have they really launched an app that doesn’t actually link to tests carried out by NHS hospital labs & PHE labs instead only including tests carried out via the outsourced lighthouse lab network??”
The Welsh government pointed out that Public Health Wales results can be processed and urged people to continue using the app.
Posting on Twitter, Welsh health minister Vaughan Gething urged people “shouting” that the app is “useless” to “please calm down”.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock has called the new mobile phone app an “important step forward” in the UK’s fight against COVID-19.
The app includes a link to enter a code which people receive via email or text message from the testing service if they have tested positive for COVID-19.
It asks users to self-isolate for 14 days if it detects they were in close proximity to someone with coronavirus.
Those who are tested in a NHS hospital, PHE lab or under one of the surveillance studies, including the ONS, and test positive are currently contacted by NHS Test and Trace contact tracers by text, phone or email.

Professor Sir Jonathan Montgomery, former chair of the ethics advisory board for the first edition of the app, said: “This is clearly a glitch. I imagine it won’t be that difficult to sort out, and the focus is on making sure the system is integrated.
“If they book the tests with the system they can feed them back into the app, clearly we haven’t yet got it right in terms of the other parts of the testing system being able to feed in and we would expect that to be sorted pretty quickly.”
Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran told Sky News: “How on earth can we trust this government with our data with a test-trace isolate system that is meant to be the key to unlocking this country through this pandemic and keeping us all safe, when the very basics of the information that are meant to be given to this app, we find out over a tweet? It is just bizarre.”

Is long-awaited test and trace app up to the job?

Sky’s political correspondent Rob Powell said of the initial problem: “This could be a fairly serious blow to what was touted obviously by the prime minister as a world-beating test and trace system.
“To add insult to injury, this appears to be an England-only issue.”

Remember those early days in the COVID journey, where everyone talked about “following the science”?
Looking back, it seems almost childishly naïve.

Back then we were only just learning about concepts like “the R rate” or “T cell immunity,” and Zoom quizzes were a novel way to spend an evening rather than something to shudder about.
Now, six months after the first lockdown and facing rising infection levels again, we are cynical COVID-19 veterans.
We now know that our scientists – like our politicians – are fallible. They disagree. We can’t just blithely “follow the science” because there is no such thing as “the science” – just different interpretations of incomplete and untrustworthy evidence.

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I’ve become acutely aware that we need to challenge our scientists in the same way that we challenge our politicians – asking them to explain their reasoning, putting alternative interpretations to them and listening to a range of views.

On Sophy Ridge on Sunday we’ll be trying something that we haven’t done before in the pandemic – asking two scientists to debate with one another.

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Professor Sunetra Gupta is a professor of theoretical epidemiology at the University of Oxford. On Monday she signed an open letter along with 32 other scientists, arguing against local and national lockdowns and urging restrictions for those more vulnerable to the disease.

The R number across the United Kingdom

She believes that because 89% of COVID-19 deaths are in the over-65 group and those with pre-existing medical conditions are also vulnerable, they should be subject to tighter restrictions while those who are less at risk should be allowed to continue life in a less restricted way.
This point of view is extremely inflammatory within the scientific community. Some in rival camps are reluctant to even debate with each other, for fear of legitimising their view point.
A second letter was issued by 22 scientists, headed by Dr Trisha Greenhalgh of Oxford University, arguing that it is simply not possible to isolate those most at risk from the rest of the population. A “herd immunity” strategy – where the vulnerable are shielded and we are relaxed about others who are infected – is too risky when we don’t know how long immunity lasts for.

How much could Rishi Sunak’s plan cost?

Steven Riley, professor of infectious disease dynamics at Imperial College, is concerned about judging the strength of immunity before we have more evidence. He believes that until we have a vaccine or successful treatment, we must be prepared to reduce our social contacts.
What data should we trust? How should we weigh up the costs of COVID-19 against the economic costs? Should we factor in the cost to our mental wellbeing? Can we draw lessons from other countries or are their challenges too different?
The data sets may be the same, but the conclusions drawn will be deeply personal.
If you thought the policy debate between politicians was fiery, it’s nothing compared to the rows raging among scientists. And you can understand the strength of feeling. Lives are on the line. The stakes could not be higher.

:: Watch Sophy Ridge On Sunday live from 8.30am on Sunday, followed by Sophy Ridge: The Take at 9.30am

In the race for a COVID vaccine it pays to keep your options open.
There is no way you can design a jab on paper and guarantee that it will work.

In fact, 90% of experimental vaccines fail to make it to the clinic.
Live updates on coronavirus from UK and around the world

Potential vaccine passes another hurdle as 10,000 UK volunteers to test jab

So it’s welcome news that a second vaccine is to start late-stage clinical trials in the UK, joining the prototype from Oxford University and AstraZeneca.

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The Novavax candidate has produced promising results in early stage trials, triggering antibody levels that are at least as high as those seen in people recovering from the disease.

But a large-scale phase 3 study is a significant test for the vaccine. There are three key questions.

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First, does the vaccine work well in those who need it most? The efficiency of our immune systems tends to fall with age, so testing the vaccine in older people will be a priority.
Second, how long does the immune response last? Antibodies in people who have had COVID-19 fall rapidly after they have recovered. Does that mean regular booster doses will be needed to keep up protection?
And finally, does the vaccine stop people spreading the virus, or just protect them from the disease? If the latter does it just reduce the severity of symptoms?

Vaccine could be available in first half of 2021

The current surge in COVID-19 cases in the UK should mean scientists get those answers more quickly.
They will be looking for differences in the infection rate in those who have had the vaccine and those who get a placebo injection of salty water. Once they have a statistically significant difference they end the trial.
You can expect more vaccines to start late-stage trials in the UK in the coming weeks. It’s a sign of good progress and a reason to remain hopeful of an end to this grim pandemic.

Patients with sufficient levels of vitamin D are less likely to experience complications and die from COVID-19, according to a new study in the US, while another has found it also reduces infection rates.
Vitamin D sufficiency was linked with a significantly decreased level of inflammatory markets, and higher blood levels of immune cells, in new research from Boston University’s school of medicine.

The higher levels of lymphocytes were tied to the reduction in cytokine storms – the release of too many proteins into the blood too quickly – which is one of the ways the coronavirus infections can kill.

Contact tracing apps: The problems and potential

Blood samples to measure vitamin D levels were taken from 235 patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19, explained the study published in the journal PLOS ONE.
These patients were followed for clinical outcomes including the severity of their infections, whether they lost consciousness, if they had difficulty breathing to the point of becoming hypoxic, or if they died.

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In patients older than 40, those who had sufficient levels of vitamin D were more than 51% less likely to die than patients who were deficient.

Coronavirus new restrictions: What you can and can’t do – and the penalties for breaking the rules

According to Dr Michael Holick, who recently published another study finding that sufficient vitamin D can reduce the risk of catching the coronavirus by 54%, the vitamin can also help against other viruses affecting the upper respiratory tract.

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“There is great concern that the combination of an influenza infection and a coronal viral infection could substantially increase hospitalisations and death due to complications from these viral infections,” Dr Holick said.
“Because vitamin D deficiency and insufficiency is so widespread in children and adults in the US and worldwide, especially in the winter months, it is prudent for everyone to take a vitamin D supplement to reduce risk of being infected and having complications from COVID-19,” he added.

Amazon has unveiled a flying camera drone which can be used inside the home to stream video to residents’ phones in case of a break-in.
The device has prompted concerns from privacy organisations and campaigners who warn it could permit unwanted surveillance.

Ring, the Amazon company behind the device, said it was designed with privacy in mind, resting in a dock which physically blocks the camera unless it is launched.

Ever get a Ring Alarm alert and want to immediately see what’s happening? The Ring Always Home Cam is here to help. This compact, lightweight, autonomously flying indoor camera gives even greater visibility when you’re not home. Learn more: https://t.co/A62pZUuYDa [US Only] pic.twitter.com/13cXKtEeSs
— Ring (@ring) September 24, 2020

In an illustrative video – not recorded with one of the actual devices – Ring shows the drone itself being a significant deterrent to an intruder.
“The camera will only start recording when the device leaves the base and starts flying via one of the preset paths,” the company added.

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Officially known as the Always Home Cam, the drone will cost $250 (£192) when it goes on sale – initially only in the US.

It can’t be manually controlled and instead will only fly along a pre-set path, although Amazon said “obstacle avoidance technology allows it to avoid unexpected objects as it moves on the pre-set paths”.

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As a small lightweight drone, with propellers shrouded by a cage, the device is also designed to avoid injuring pets or damaging any delicate furniture or furnishings.
According to Amazon, the “autonomous indoor security camera flies your chosen, personalised paths so that you can easily check in on your home for peace of mind – like whether someone left a window open or forgot to turn the stove off”.
It can also be integrated with Ring’s home security system and perform a recce if an alarm goes off to see what’s happening.
However it isn’t clear what would stop a burglar from simply knocking the device out of the air.

The world’s first hydrogen-powered commercial aircraft has taken to the skies above Bedfordshire.
The only thing that the six-seater Piper M-class plane emits is water vapour – and ZeroAvia, the company behind the technology, says its aim is to make hydrogen planes available commercially in three years.

“What we’re doing is replacing fossil fuel engines with what’s called hydrogen electric engines,” ZeroAvia founder and chief executive Val Miftakhov told Sky News.

Image: The only thing that the six-seater Piper M-class plane emits is water vapour
“We also have a fuelling infrastructure set up that ensures zero emission production of hydrogen itself.”
A prototype plane with this type of engine has flown before, but the company says this is the first time that a commercially available aircraft has taken to the skies using hydrogen power.

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ZeroAvia says the science is already there for a long, zero-emissions flight by the end of this decade.

But existing airport infrastructure is designed to accommodate gas-guzzling jets, and introducing hydrogen aircraft more widely would mean ground operations would have to be overhauled too.

More from Science & Tech

“It’s not just a question of putting hydrogen-based aeroplanes and getting them to work, we need the infrastructure on the ground to support everything,” said David Gleave, aviation safety investigator and researcher at Loughborough University.
“We have to work out how to refuel these aeroplanes because existing infrastructure won’t work and we have to work out other things such as the fire and rescue requirements for the aeroplane, so there’s quite a lot of work to do but certainly it’s very exciting going forward.”

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The UK government is supporting the project as part of its Jet Zero Council initiative, which is aimed at making net-zero emissions flights possible in the future.
Ministers hope it will bring economic benefit to Britain, even as the world faces a pandemic which has crushed the airline industry.
“There’s also an opportunity, as we build back, to make sure that we’ve got environmental credentials at the heart of this. This is world-beating technology which has an economic opportunity for Britain as well as answering the global climate change challenge,” aviation minister Robert Courts told Sky News.
After Thursday’s 20-minute flight, ZeroAvia is working towards a 250-mile flight out of an airfield in Orkney.
Mr Miftakhov says the technology is safe, and people will be able to fly without feeling guilty about damaging the environment.
He hopes it won’t be too long until there are paying passengers on board.

An NHS coronavirus contact-tracing app has launched across England and Wales.
As of Thursday evening, it had been downloaded more than one million times by Android users, according to the Google Play Store.

The total figure is likely to be higher when iPhone downloads are included, but Apple does not provide similar figures for app downloads.

Image: The NHS coronavirus contact-tracing app has been downloaded more than a million times
Health Secretary Matt Hancock has called the new mobile phone app an “important step forward” in the UK’s fight against COVID-19.
It asks users to self-isolate for 14 days if it detects they were in close proximity to someone with coronavirus.

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Is it private?

Yes. All the contacts stay on your phone, so they’re not sent to anyone. Even if someone did get into your phone the data is all anonymous, so all they’d see would be strings of random numbers. As apps go, this is about as private as it gets.

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How can I be sure?
The code is open source, so if you’re a developer you can take a look at it. If you’re not you’ll have to take it on trust – but rest assured that the best privacy researchers in the world have pored over it, so this has had some high quality scrutiny.
That’s why countries from Switzerland to Scotland have validated it for use.
Does it work?
It depends what you mean by work. The technology comes from Google and Apple so it’s unlikely that it’s going to break (although even Twitter and Instagram go down from time to time). The developers assured us it won’t drain your battery either.
That’s good. But is it actually going to stop the virus?
Wouldn’t it be great if it did! Sadly we don’t have the technology for that – but in the meantime the app could definitely help.
Think of it this way: if you got a notification telling you the friend you met for coffee has tested positive and then you don’t visit your grandfather as a result, that could literally save his life.
Lots of moments like that could make a very real difference to the spread of the virus.

How you download the new contact-tracing app

If I do get a notification, do I have to self-isolate?
You don’t have to in the sense that you won’t be punished if you don’t, but you should all the same.
What if it’s not accurate? At work I put my phone in a locker – I don’t want to be told to isolate just because the guy with the locker next door has a positive test
If you’re in this situation, there’s a switch on the app to turn it off. Of course there are always times where it won’t work perfectly.
If you leave your phone in your jacket and someone else sits next to it, that might trigger the app. This is technology, not magic – but as most of us are pretty attached to our phones it should be okay.
I don’t know. I read somewhere there are lots of false positives
I read that too and I think it’s confusing a few different things.
Sometimes the app will make mistakes about distance: it might think someone was two metres away when actually they were 2.5 metres away.
But you’ll never get a notification if you haven’t been close to someone who’s had a positive test for at least 15 minutes. That’s a good reason to take the alerts seriously.
:: Okay. But what if no-one else downloads it?
As a journalist I can confidently predict the media will obsess over total download figures, but on an individual level we shouldn’t worry about it. If everyone you know has the app, that’s all that matters.
Maybe the best way to think of the app is as the digital version of a mask. If everyone wore one, they’d really work, but just because they don’t in one city doesn’t mean you should stop wearing yours on the bus.
Great! I’ll get my dad to get it. But he’s got an older phone
Oh sorry, he doesn’t get to access it. Yeah. Bit of a downer I know.
Oh. But for me – is it an issue if I work in Scotland?
You’ve hit on another snag. The apps for Scotland and Northern Ireland don’t talk to the app that launched on Thursday in England and Wales. That might change, but until then your best bet is download all the apps separately.

Image: The new app is available in England and Wales
What about the QR code check-ins? Are they private too?
Yes. In fact, this is a good example of just how private the whole system is: it’s so private that if there’s an outbreak then test and trace won’t know who you are.
They can send you a warning – which won’t have the venue’s name in it – but they literally don’t have a clue who you are.
That doesn’t sound great for contact tracing
What can I say? You wanted privacy, you got privacy.
One last question: why didn’t I know all this? It would have been really helpful
To me, this is the biggest worry about the app. On Thursday I went to a mosque in Newham, east London, one of areas of the country that has been worst hit by COVID-19. It has had the app for several weeks as part of the trial.
But the president of the mosque said that at best one in 10 people were using it and he didn’t believe the local community had been properly involved. I’ve heard similar reports from other people in the area. It’s not a great sign.
But then again it’s important to keep these things in perspective.
After the pandemic hit, the mosque set up a food bank. Today it’s still feeding 300 people a week.
When it comes to getting the virus under control, the stakes could hardly be higher. Even if the communication hasn’t been that effective, it makes sense to download the app if you can.