any way to block/hide apps and notifications from the store?

Open the play store app, go into its settings, and disable notifications.
No you cannot hide apps that you wish not to see.....

 

That's an ad pop up...
Are you using the Play Store APP, or using a web browser to access the play store?

 

I've not seen anything like that, and there's many different Covid apps in the Play Store, all of which are irrelevant for me.

 

Which one? Because they all look like official state govt or authority Covid tracing apps. All irrelevant to me because I'm actually in China, which uses Wechat for Covid track and trace.

 

Which country are you in? This is an international forum, we are from all sorts of different places.

That said, your use of "bloody" sounds rather British, and the UK Government have paid for a lot of ads for their app. So if it's that one the fact that it's a Government app is perfectly compatible with the pop-up being an ad served by one of your other apps. I can say that I've never had a pop-up from the Play Store app, which makes me even more suspicious that this is actually some other app serving this (despite the fact that it happens whenever you open the Play Store, and despite the fact that doing that would break the Play Store rules on how apps are allowed to serve apps, as they are forbidden from interfering with another app).

 

OT
That reminded me, a few of my students picked up "bloody hell" from when they watched scenes from Titanic and Harry Potter.

 

I am not sure (because I always turn that sort of crap off), but it might have something to do with the Covid tracking spyware that Google forced onto all of our devices (at least here).

 

Look in the notification information for Google Play Services ("exposure notifications" category in English). Play Services is, in practice, the only way they could roll this out: if you waited for most manufacturers to release system updates we'd be into the pandemic after next before most Android users got it .

But as this is the first case I've heard of of this there has to be some other factor on your phone. This isn't happening to everyone, or even large numbers of people. Perhaps it's specific to your region, or your service provider, or something like that. Worth trying and seeing whether it makes any difference (and if it doesn't work I'd try rebooting the phone before you conclude that's not it).

 

Noway to remove it without sacrificing useability...

Gee, thanks, Google!

You can turn it off.

However, Google has been busted multiple times before for not abiding by user settings- especially when these settings are concerning privacy.

 

Have you checked your running devices under developer options? even tho I have told "go_ogle" I do NOT want to be tracked for c_19 in MY profile, I still end up finding exposure_matching in my running "go_ogle" srvcs!! (this always happens when/if my phone "dies"!!) no matter how diligent I TRY to be abt keeping my battery charged, I inevitably fail!! and have to go back in and stop abt 90% of those "srvcs"!!

 

Unfortunately, this does occur each time a device is rebooted from off, and even sometimes with a simple reboot.

I have not found a way to prevent this, short of removing or disabling the offending apps.

There is a way to do it, even without root, via a computer- but I only know one person who has done so.

It simply ads/subtracts some code that prevents the apps from starting at startup or appearing in your app drawer.

I know that he found out how to do this from a video on YouTube, but I can't remember what it is called.

If you are interested (and maybe even if you are not, lol) I will ask him about it and get the info from him and post it here.

 

Ok, here it is, and there my be more coming as my buddy finds them.
He used the method on his device and really likes it.

I have not used it myself, as I do not have a PC.