Health ministry officials have put pressure on meal delivery workers to download the government’s coronavirus tracing app, the NRC reported on Wednesday.

The ministry has written to the delivery workers’ union NLVVM requesting that the organisation ask its members to ‘download the app, so that undesirable infections can be prevented’, the paper said.

The writer of the email also stresses that her job as ‘manager partnerships coronavirus app’ is to involve organisations in the introduction of the CoronaMelder app with the aim of making sure as many people as possible download it.

Health minister Hugo de Jonge said in July that people will never be directly, or indirectly, required to use the app, and a ministry spokesman has admitted the approach should not have been made.

‘We should have said that use of the app is voluntary in our email, and we will alert them to this fact,’ the spokesman said.

The app is currently undergoing trials in Twente and Drenthe and will shortly be launched nationwide.