Skip to content

Less than half of Covid app downloads are active

PA Media Contact tracing appPA Media
The Protect Scotland app has around 950,000 active users despite two million downloads

Less than half the people who have downloaded Scotland's contact tracing app are actively using it, BBC Scotland's Sunday Show has learned.

Protect Scotland has about 950,000 active users despite being downloaded more than two million times.

The Scottish government said it continues to encourage people to use the app.

It comes amid concerns about mounting pressure on Scotland's contact tracing system due to a spike in Covid cases.

Last week saw the highest number of positive cases recorded in Scotland since the pandemic began, with a peak of 4,234.

'Fallen out of fashion'

Active users of the Protect Scotland app are those who still have the software downloaded and running.

Meanwhile non-active users would have deleted or disabled the app, or would have disabled bluetooth on their phone which means the app does not gather data.

Allan Wilson, the president of the Institute of Biomedical Science, based at Monklands Hospital, said the more people who use the app the more effective it will be.

He said he fears it has "slightly fallen out of fashion" and called for people to be more responsible.

"A lot of people did comply and download the app and now that does not but we seem to have had a plateau with that. These are all factors," he said.

"Test and Protect will only work if people actually participate and comply with the guidance."

On Saturday it emerged that contact tracers in Scotland would prioritise cases where there is a "high risk" of transmission.

Staff will now only make phone calls for the most urgent cases, while texts will be used "more extensively" for cases deemed low risk.

It came after NHS Grampian warned that the recent spike in cases meant it would not be able to trace the contacts of everyone who tests positive.

On Sunday the Scottish government confirmed there were 2,726 new cases of Covid reported, down from the peak but still high, with a test positivity rate of 11.4%.

The latest figures show 3,857,584 people have received the first dose of the Covid vaccination and a further 2,762,156 have received their second dose.