UK Government Coronavirus Email Opens Up ‘Plague Inc’ On Your Phone
The only thing that is currently more difficult to obtain in the UK than an HTML5, at the moment, is a lateral flow test. This is not ideal when you are in the middle of an epidemic and trying to keep the disease from spreading. You are so tired, my dear reader.
If you have ordered tests from the UK government, you may already be aware that an email will be sent to you. It will contain a code and a link. This is great in theory, provided the link takes you to the correct place and not a fake video game about pandemics.
@lenn_box tweeted a video in which they opened an email with what appeared to be their test code but found something completely different. After scrolling down to the bottom of their email, and clicking on the attached QR code file it opens the mobile-strategy app Plague Inf. directly on their phone. The one where you must create a fictional disease that will wipe out all of the world’s inhabitants. It wasn’t meant to do that, I think.
This is obvious. However, it is not a joke. This is a real thing. The GameByte team has confirmed it and have tested it with Android devices.
The big question is: Why? It’s a big question, and there is no official answer. GameByte suggests the possibility that the QR code used by the government was the same codename as that used by Plague Inc… This could have caused phones to mix up the codes and open the wrong thing. Some new features were added to the game during the real Pandemic. This may have contributed to some kind of mix-up.
It’s pretty clear that this was not intentional. However, it seems a bit strange that it was Plague Incorporated that the link ended up being mixed with. It may be fixed soon, so people can get their tests. A pandemic-themed strategy video game is not a good substitute.
