Huge drop in number of people with coronavirus symptoms on tracking app

A coronavirus tracking app with hundreds of thousands of users is paying dividends as researchers better understand the outbreak's progress.

The number of people reporting coronavirus symptoms has fallen by nearly three-quarters in just over two weeks, according to data from a popular tracking app.

King’s College London, which helped design the app, suggested around 582,000 people nationwide are now experiencing symptoms, down from two million at the beginning of April.

Those figures are predictions based on data from 871,500 participants who logged their progress consistently for seven days.

The findings suggest there are still huge numbers of people who could infect others, and the researchers said now is ‘definitely not the time for complacency’.

They also no longer show any clear difference between cities and the countryside in terms of where the virus is expected to be spreading.

Lead researcher Professor Tim Spector said his team worried people would stop using the app over time, and was ‘blown away’ to find themselves proven wrong.

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‘It’s fair to say that when we launched the app, we were unsure how many people would download it and also how long people would keep contributing to it.’

‘However, with 2.4 million downloads and over 800,000 logging daily, the reaction from the British public has definitely surpassed all of our expectations. It’s been truly inspiring to see.’

He said the falling case numbers was ‘very reassuring’ but added: ‘With deaths still high, this is definitely not the time for complacency.’

Other scientists said app’s data vindicates the lockdown, which has been extended for another three weeks.

Keith Neal, an epidemiology professor at the University of Nottingham, said: ‘This Covid tracker app is looking for symptoms that might be Covid-19.

‘Under half of patients tested for Covid-19 are found to be positive and the symptoms they report can have many causes.

‘A fall in these symptoms strongly supports the benefits of lockdown as this will interfere with the transmission of all respiratory pathogens as there are less person-to-person contacts.

‘The tool is useful as it is simple to use and data is produced in a timely manner and the accuracy should improve with the warmer weather as other respiratory viruses decline in the warmer weather.’

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