Permanently Deleted
Test and trace in the uk is so stupid. You get pinged by the app to tell you to isolate, but then you're not actually entitled to a free test, and you can't get out of isolation by taking a test and getting a negative result. So if somebody gets pinged, the people they've come into contact with- even people they live with- won't, so it doesn't track the spread at all. And of course loads of people don't use it because they don't want to be pinged.
It's so fucking frustrating because we were this close to actually having the virus under control. Last summer we had locked down enough that numbers were almost low enough for a functioning test and trace system to keep the virus controlled. Instead the app was delayed because they wasted months trying to do something technically impossible, and everyone was told it was going to violate their privacy. It was only released after everyone had forgotten that it was supposed to be our way out, after the government had signalled to everyone not to take covid seriously any more by paying us to go to restaurants and reopening schools.
Just goes to show the Chinese approach of "fuck it, we're testing the whole city just to be sure" is absolutely more effective both against the virus and economically.
The lateral flow ones are, but I think you're not allowed to take one at a testing center if you're self-isolating, and also they don't regard them as very accurate. The others I believe you have to pay for if you don't have symptoms, unless that's changed recently.
And that's the day I decide to start having conversations in my boss' office.
This is the first food shortage I've seen like this since the one from the start of the lockdown.
It always gives me that feeling of dread of how easy it would be for everything to just collapse.
With cases rising to nearly 50,000 day in the United Kingdom, hundreds of thousands of people have been advised - or "pinged" - by the National Health Service's contact-tracing app to isolate for 10 days.
The drastic reduction in staffing that has resulted has sown chaos through sectors as diverse as food supplies, haulage, supermarkets, hospitality, manufacturing and media. To avoid disruption, many people have deleted the app from their phones.
Genuinely worried that shortages in the wealthy global north will lead to ramping up of global south exploitation, which in turn would lead to even worse shortages there.
I love how the focus is on the app going off all the time and not, you know, the fact that it's only doing that because you got exposed to a virus that's killed 120,000 people in the UK alone
