Even if it works, this coronavirus tracking app is no get-out-of-jail-free card | Gaby Hinsliff

Tracing the path of the virus is vital, but so is people's continued willingness to cooperate and isolate if necessary

Your country needs you. Or to be specific, it needs your phone.

The new NHS coronavirus tracing app is to be trialled from this week on the Isle of Wight and ministers are pushing it with all the fervent appeal to moral duty they can muster. Since it's being sold as the nearest thing to a safe way out of this nightmare, unsurprisingly early surveys suggest most islanders are willing at least to try something that promises to alert them when they've been in contact with other app users who later show symptoms of Covid-19. Throughout this epidemic the British have proved more willing than anyone imagined to do whatever's asked of them, to protect the NHS or their own loved ones. But can it really be that simple?