UK ditches virus tracing app for Google-Apple one

The UK government has scrapped plans to launch its coronavirus contact tracing smartphone app because of technical problems and will now work on building one using technology supplied by Apple and Google, officials said on Thursday.

The app had been undergoing trials on the Isle of Wight, off the southern coast of England, with plans to roll it out to the rest of the country later, but the programme went quiet in recent weeks.

Officials overseeing the app's development said they couldn't overcome technical challenges found during field tests.

Even though it worked well on Android devices, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the government was abandoning the prototype app and instead putting its efforts into developing one using a special interface jointly developed by Apple and Google, which itself had problems.

Authorities started developing a second app in parallel that uses the Google-Apple interface, Hancock said at the government's daily briefing.

He wasn't able to say when a new app would be ready.

Britain has the highest coronavirus death toll in Europe, at over 42,000, and the Conservative government has been sharply criticized for what many see as its slow, muddled response to fighting the pandemic.