First Minister urges people to download and use COVID-19 symptom tracking app
People in Wales are being urged to download an App which asks you to self-report Covid-19 symptoms to help the NHS better understand where coronavirus hotspots develop.
First Minister Mark Drakeford appealed to the public to download the COVID Symptom Tracker app which is already being used by around 70,000 people in Wales.
The App works by asking people to log their daily symptoms to help build a clearer picture of how the virus is affecting people.
The App is for everyone, not just those who are experiencing symptoms.
Data from the COVID-19 Symptom Tracker app – developed by researchers at King’s College London and healthcare science company, ZOE – is shared daily with the Welsh Government and NHS Wales.
During the daily press briefing on Monday, first minister, Mark Drakeford said: “I want to encourage people in Wales to use this App developed by King’s College London, and the health care science companies Zoe.
We use it in the Welsh government because the data from the COVID-19 symptom tracker has helped us and the NHS in Wales to track outbreaks of Coronavirus in Wales.
This is not the App being developed and still being trialed by the UK government on the Isle of Wight.
It takes one minute to fill it and about 70,000 people in Wales use the app every day and that includes me.
In a couple of seconds, you can load your symptoms and that really helps us to understand what is going on.
Nearly 4 million people use this app, but we need more people to use it too because the more people who use it, the better the understanding we gain from it.”
Shadow Health Minister, Angela Burns MS, reiterated the first ministers call for people to use the App, she said: “In such difficult times it is vital that we embrace the amazing technology that is available to help us learn more about this disease and find the best way forward in tackling it.
The Covid Symptom tracking app which is free to download and very easy to use. Once set it up, it takes less than a minute a day to enter information into and it can be used to record information for all persons in your household.
The more information that is gathered, the more valuable the data the scientists working to defeat this virus have to work with. I encourage people of all ages to download and make use of this and contribute to help defeat this disease.
The app is available to download from the Apple App Store and Google Play from the links at covid.joinzoe.com.
Daily symptom maps and other content are available via https://covid.joinzoe.com/blog
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