People might be more inclined to follow the Covid rules if they understood them

Something approaching 700,000 people in the UK have been pinged by the NHS Covid app and are, presumably, undertaking the voluntary (but strongly advised) self-isolation (compulsory in Northern Ireland). Others will have been placed in lockdown because they’ve been contacted by the test and trace system, which means that self-isolation is legally required.

Alerts from the app are up 17 per cent on the previous week. There are anecdotal reports of people deleting the Covid-19 app or turning off Bluetooth, but the reports from industry suggest that the rules are causing disruption. Shortages are reported, and – as is the usual way with these things – reassurances that there is no need to panic will be swiftly followed by panic buying, with petrol and loo rolls the focus for the locusts. Shortages beget panic, and panic begets more shortages – and so the clock goes.

There is certainly a shortage of clear government messaging. People might be more inclined to follow the rules if they understood them, they were clear, and if the general vibe emanating from government and parts of the media wasn’t that so-called freedom day has arrived and the worst of the pandemic is over.

As things stand no one really knows what to do – except to fill up the car and stock the larder. As so often, the lessons of the first wave of the pandemic last April have not been learnt. Public confidence and consent is being eroded, and all the more so as people sense there is one rule for VIPs (such as the mysterious testing pilot used or contemplated by Michael Gove, Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak). There seems to have been an outbreak of hypocrisy as much as anything.

The fundamental reason, however, why there is a problem with the app and the emerging “pingdemic” isn’t because it has suddenly gone berserk, but because there has been such an exponential rise in infections.

If the app made mistakes about detecting cases though neighbours’ walls, then it was doing that from day one. The increase is fairly obviously correlated with the third wave of the pandemic. The vaccine does provide protection for those who have been “pinged”, but it is partial, they can still spread the virus (albeit not so generously), and people can still become very ill. Thus the spread of infection still has to be contained even as the nation opens up in order to pace the pressure on the NHS and make the unlock sustainable – if not irreversible.

In other words, every worker who is granted an exemption from the rules is potentially adding to the spread of the virus. Some, on the law of averages, will definitely be infectious, and will make others ill. Thus there has to be the greatest caution in granting such exemptions, concentrating on key services, as in previous waves.

If the third wave spirals up beyond what Sage has modelled, then the inevitable result will be either restrictions being reimposed, or many more seriously ill patients and a broken NHS, or both.

The app is not broken or unnecessary, but essential to returning life to normal. So is self-isolation. On the evidence of their own behaviour and confused policy announcements, ministers seem, once again, to be busily self-isolating from reality.