The pingdemic: how UK's Covid-19 app has created a health headache France24 25 Jul 2021, 04:08 GMT+10 Notifications from the UK's official Covid-19 application have increased in recent weeks. A mere 600,000 people received a 'ping' this week to alert them that they had been in close contact with someone who had tested positive and they needed to self-isolate for 10 days. Such is the detrimental effect on people's working life that many are choosing to deactivate it. David Stupples has fallen victim to Britain's current 'pingdemic'. Stupples was walking around a marina a few weeks ago when a notification on his smartphone told him to isolate for 10 days because he had been in the vicinity of someone who tested positive for Covid-19.