At least 80 per cent of Brits must download new coronavirus tracking app for it to work

THE high-tech national effort to track Covid-19 outbreaks will fail unless a record number of Brits download a smartphone app, ministers have been warned.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock has unveiled plans to use smartphone technology to track the spread of the virus.

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But experts at Oxford University have said the pandemic can only be suppressed here if eight out of ten smartphone users take part.

A similar contact-tracing app in Singapore has only seen around 17 per cent uptake.

Britain’s most popular smartphone app — free messaging platform WhatsApp — is downloaded on 67 per cent of phones.

Crucially, only 42 per cent of 55 to 64-year-olds have WhatsApp.

This suggests older users — who are more at risk of Covid-19 — are reluctant to download new apps.

Matthew Gould, in charge of the NHS app operation, admitted last week it would be “tough”.

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This so-called “phase two” of the coronavirus war comes as the government passed the self-imposed 100,000 tests a day on Friday.

The new app will be backed by an army of 3,000 testers deployed on the ground with 15,000 call handlers tracking who may have been infected.

Cabinet Minister Robert Jenrick was “optimistic” people will download a phone app.

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He said: “If you think of the different measures that we’ve brought forward, the restrictions, the vast majority have got behind it. I think that they will again.”

Deputy chief medical officer Dr Jenny Harries said: “It’s a bit like social distancing. Everybody has to do it together to get it to work.”

A trial for the app — which may be announced tomorrow — will see 141,000 residents on the Isle of Wight asked to take part.

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