October 14, 2020 2.26 pm This story is over 41 months old

Lincolnshire COVID-19 alert level is ‘medium’ despite app confusion

It is showing as ‘high’ in some areas of Lincoln
| Photo: The Lincolnite

The county council has confirmed that the whole of Lincolnshire is currently at the ‘medium’ level (tier one) risk for COVID-19, despite the NHS Test and Trace app showing ‘high’ in some areas of the LN5 and LN6 postcode.

Lincolnshire is currently in the tier one category, but there has been some confusion over local COVID alert levels with messages on the app such as “LN6 includes areas in Local COVID Alert Level: Medium and Local COVID Alert Level: High”.

Andy Fox, Assistant Director of Public Health at Lincolnshire County Council, said: “We are aware that the local COVID alert level on the NHS Test and Trace app is showing as ‘high’ as well as ‘medium’ in some cases for local residents.

“NHS Test and Trace are working on aligning the app to the correct ‘medium’ level for Lincolnshire following the changes made to alert levels yesterday.

“The whole of Lincolnshire is currently at the ‘medium’ level of alert.”

A recent message about alert levels on the COVID-19 app has caused confusion.

People using the NHS COVID-19 app, including many in Lincolnshire, also reported receiving so-called ‘phantom notifications’, including “Possible COVID-19 exposure. Someone you were near reported having COVID-19. Exposure date, duration and signal strength have been saved.”

When the notification was tapped on, it would disappear and show no further information within the app, which was launched after several delays on September 24.

When the initial notification on the app was tapped it disappeared.

The app was updated on October 13 and a Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “NHS COVID-19 app users only need to self-isolate if they get a notification directly from the app advising them to do so.”