The NHS COVID app is closing down – but is the pandemic really over?
For more than two years, the NHS COVID App dictated the lives of those living in the UK – it told us which counties were safe to travel into, who people could spend Christmas with, and how close the public could get to their loved ones.
But now, on Thursday 27 April 2023 it is being switched off for the final time.
No more “getting pinged“, or needing a bar code to enter a restaurant. The app is estimated to have saved thousands of lives and stopped millions of infections but now the fight against the virus enters a new phase and it is no longer needed.
Germany’s health minister has already declared the pandemic over, while the US president has signed a bill terminating the country’s national emergency response to the virus.
But while some may hail it as another step on the road to the end of the pandemic, for half a million clinically vulnerable people in the UK, COVID can still be life-threatening.
From tennis prodigy to long COVID sufferer
Three years ago, Tanysha Dissanayake was a tennis prodigy who played alongside Emma Radacanu in junior Wimbledon.
Then the COVID virus forced her into early retirement, and out of education: “It was stripped away from me overnight,” she said.
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Long Covid: ‘I’m grieving my life’
At one point, her heart rate reached 150bpm when just walking up the stairs.
“I have come a long way since a year ago. A year ago I couldn’t even open my eyes to watch Netflix,” Tanysha said.
“But in terms of my life, and my full recovery, I am still so far away from where I need to be.”
The virus has left her unable to study, read and socialise and grieving the loss of her former, very active, life.
“I can’t walk more than 2m, I need my little brother to push me around in a wheelchair,” she said.
“That was not a life I was ever prepared for. I was 19 and healthy.”
‘I feel forgotten – people have moved on without me’
She is now worried about the disappearance of the official NHS COVID app and what it means for her to be able to interact in public.
“It scares me so much,” she said, adding that she is terrified to catch the virus again, fearing it could set back her recovery by another year.
“I can understand needs and wants to move on from COVID, because it was a traumatic thing for everyone, but people are forgetting about it, and it’s being labelled as something that’s not dangerous at all,” she said.
Now 21, she said she feels she is “stuck as a 19 year old”.
It takes her up to a week to prepare to leave the house.
Tanysha added: “My life has been on hold for two years and people have moved on without me and I am still here.”
Digital COVID passes were used to enter bars, restaurants and board planes
‘I thought the app had already closed down’
Although hospital levels are not the same as they were during the peak of the pandemic, for patient Nicola Macarty, any new infection could kill her.
The 59-year-old got COVID for the second time last week and collapsed in the shower, unable to breathe.
“People are still very ill with COVID,” she said, speaking from her hospital bed.
But she was unaware the app had still been operating until this point.
Nicola Macarty is currently in hospital with COVID
“I honestly thought the app had gone years ago,” she said. “I didn’t realise the app was still there.”
But for Imogen Dempsey, who is clinically ill, the end of the app feels like an effort to ignore the realities of the new phase of the pandemic.
“Everybody is tired and fed up and could do without having to talk about COVID anymore,” she said.
“[But] for people like me, the fact that we still need to think about being so careful and our lives are still so much on hold, absolutely we’d like things to be different – but they’re not.
“COVID hasn’t gone away, and stopping recording it and trying to ignore it isn’t actually a public health strategy.”
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How the app was tweaked to ping fewer people
COVID wards still operating
Frimley Health still operates specific COVID wards, first introduced in 2020 in a bid to stop patients from spreading the infection around the hospital.
John Seymour, deputy medical director at Frimley Health, said: “Living with COVID is an acceptance it is here, it will always be here.
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“But we have a responsibility to continue providing healthcare.”
He said people will “always come in with COVID, or problems related to COVID”.
Sir Keir Starmer has joined other European leaders in Kyiv to press Russia to agree an unconditional 30-day ceasefire.
The prime minister is attending the summit alongside French President Emmanuel Macron, recently-elected German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
It is the first time the leaders of the four countries have travelled to Ukraine at the same time – arriving in the capital by train – with their meeting hosted by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Sir Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz travelling in the saloon car of a special train to Kyiv. Pic: Reuters
Leaders arrive in Kyiv by train. Pic: PA
It comes after Donald Trump called for “ideally” a 30-day ceasefire between Kyiv and Moscow, and warned that if any pause in the fighting is not respected “the US and its partners will impose further sanctions”.
Security and defence analyst Michael Clarke told Sky News presenter Samantha Washington the European leaders are “rowing in behind” the US president, who referred to his “European allies” for the first time in this context in a post on his Truth Social platform.
“So this meeting is all about heaping pressure on the Russians to go along with the American proposal,” he said.
“It’s the closest the Europeans and the US have been for about three months on this issue.”
Sir Keir Starmer, Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Emmanuel Macron among world leaders in Kyiv. Pic: AP
Trump calls for ceasefire. Pic: Truth Social
Ukraine’s foreign minister Andrii Sybiha said Ukraine and its allies are ready for a “full, unconditional ceasefire” for at least 30 days starting on Monday.
Ahead of the meeting on Saturday, Sir Keir, Mr Macron, Mr Tusk and Mr Merz released a joint statement.
European leaders show solidarity – but await Trump’s backing
The hope is Russia’s unilateral ceasefire, such as it’s worth, can be extended for a month to give peace a chance.
But ahead of the meeting, Ukrainian sources told Sky News they are still waiting for President Donald Trump to put his full weight behind the idea.
The US leader has said a 30-day ceasefire would be ideal, but has shown no willingness yet for putting pressure on Russian president Vladimir Putin to agree.
The Russians say a ceasefire can only come after a peace deal can be reached.
European allies are still putting their hopes in a negotiated end to the war despite Moscow’s intransigence and President Trump’s apparent one-sided approach favouring Russia.
Ukrainians would prefer to be given enough economic and military support to secure victory.
But in over three years, despite its massive economic superiority to Russia and its access to more advanced military technology, Europe has not found the political will to give Kyiv the means to win.
Until they do, Vladimir Putin may decide it is still worth pursuing this war despite its massive cost in men and materiel on both sides.
“We reiterate our backing for President Trump’s calls for a peace deal and call on Russia to stop obstructing efforts to secure an enduring peace,” they said.
“Alongside the US, we call on Russia to agree a full and unconditional 30-day ceasefire to create the space for talks on a just and lasting peace.”
Sir Keir and Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a meeting in March. Pic: AP
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Putin’s Victory Day parade explained
The leaders said they were “ready to support peace talks as soon as possible”.
But they warned that they would continue to “ratchet up pressure on Russia’s war machine” until Moscow agrees to a lasting ceasefire.
“We are clear the bloodshed must end, Russia must stop its illegal invasion, and Ukraine must be able to prosper as a safe, secure and sovereign nation within its internationally recognised borders for generations to come,” their statement added.
“We will continue to increase our support for Ukraine.”
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The European leaders are set to visit the Maidan, a central square in Ukraine’s capital where flags represent those who died in the war.
They are also expected to host a virtual meeting for other leaders in the “coalition of the willing” to update them on progress towards a peacekeeping force.
Military officers from around 30 countries have been involved in drawing up plans for a coalition, which would provide a peacekeeping force in the event of a ceasefire being agreed between Russia and Ukraine.
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This force “would help regenerate Ukraine’s armed forces after any peace deal and strengthen confidence in any future peace”, according to Number 10.
A special constable has been jailed after taking pictures on his phone from bodycam footage showing a dying man.
Former police volunteer William Heggs, 23, was sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment at Leicester Crown Court on Friday after showing the photos of victim William Harty, 28, to a female colleague and storing them on his Snapchat account.
Mr Harty was found seriously injured in a residential street in Leicester on 25 October 2021 and Heggs had attended the scene, helping with CPR before paramedics arrived.
Mr Harty died in hospital a day later and the man responsible for his injuries, his brother-in-law Martin Casey, was subsequently convicted of his manslaughter.
Heggs showed the pictures he had taken of bodycam footage of Mr Harty’s body to a Leicestershire Police constable, who reported Heggs and said she did not like seeing blood.
His phone was seized and officers discovered other photographs and video clips of bodyworn footage of incidents Heggs had attended on duty, including of a knife seizure, use of baton and pepper spray, and a man with an injured hand receiving first aid.
He also took pictures of a police computer screen, showing details of crimes and suspects, without consent.
Heggs stored the materials in a Snapchat folder and disclosed graphic details – most of which were not in the public domain – about the injuries to a woman who was killed in a road traffic collision he had attended, to a friend on the social media platform.
Heggs was suspended from the force in November 2021 and resigned in October 2024 before pleading guilty to 11 computer misuse and data protection offences this March.
William Harty’s widow Mandy Casey. Pic: PA
‘He has traumatised me’
Mr Harty’s widow, Mandy Casey, said in a victim impact statement read to the court that Heggs “took (her) husband’s dignity when he was most vulnerable”.
“You don’t take someone’s dignity and pride from them on their deathbed.”
She continued: “When I found out special constable Heggs had done this, I just wanted to ask why. He has traumatised me. I feel I will never know if he showed them to others.”
Ms Casey said she was still scared that photos of her husband’s body might appear on social media.
She added that she had lost trust in the police.
Public trust in police ‘significantly undermined’
Judge Timothy Spencer told Heggs, who has autism and ADHD, that he was “probably too immature to be working as a police officer” as he handed down the sentence.
He said Heggs had received “extensive training”, including on the importance of data protection, and knew he should only share materials for “a genuine policing purpose”.
Heggs’s actions had “significantly undermined” public trust and confidence in police, according to the judge.
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Malcolm McHaffie, from the Crown Prosecution Service, added: “William Heggs abused the public’s trust in the office he held as a special police constable.
“He violated the dignity of the deceased victims for no apparent reason other than what could be considered personal fascination and to gain credibility among his peers.”
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