How well does Proxximos work?

Proxximos as a mobile App

Mobile phone Apps are more challenging. Four things must be true for a system to successfully prevent a transmission of the virus:

Both people in an encounter must have phones compatible with App;
When they meet the App must measure the risk of transmission really accurately;
The App must then warn the potentially infected person before they become infectious and pass the virus onwards;
When this person receives a warning and advice they must follow the advice, otherwise they will go on to infect the next perso
This is better than mobile phones, where only very modern and expensive phones have UWB capability.

Proxximos knows how to build an App that will prevent more that 50% of transmissions. That’s really good and will stop a case becoming an outbreak in most circumstances. By comparison, the current digital contact tracing App in the UK only prevents around 3% of transmissions according to National Health Service and Office for National Statistics data.

The Proxximos team delivery a precursor to Proxximos in May 2020 on the Isle of Wight in the UK. This precursor effectively eradicated Covid over a period of 4 weeks. These results were studied by Oxford University and published in The Lancet Proxximos precursor effectively eradicated Covid-19

Proxximos in wearable form

This provides almost perfect coverage. If the facility operator ensures everyone in the facility has a Proxximos wearable, then all encounters are measured very accurately. This will produce even better performance than the App

We have developed our own wearable in partnership with a German computer design company. This device is purpose built for contact tracing. It contains two types of radio: Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE); and Ultra Wide Band (UWB). The first is good at approximating distance using very little power. Unfortunately it is very difficult to get accurate enough distance measurement using Bluetooth alone. By adding UWB the measurement of distance it is far more accurate. Our system turns UWB on when BLE sees that another device may be near. It would be very hard for Covid-19 to spread in a facility equipment with Proxximos wearables.

Frequently Asked Questions