
He looks at the meaning of ‘need’ as used by the NHS COVID-19 smartphone app (‘you need to self-isolate), as well as the replacement of restrictions by ‘advice’ since 19 July 2021. How is the average person supposed to know what’s allowed and what’s not?
According to Philpott, the request to self-isolate delivered by the app is not a legal requirement, and ‘the idea that the requirement, or assumed requirement, has the force of law has become another Covid myth’.