Test and trace would not prevent a second coronavirus wave, senior official admits as system identifies just a third of people it must find
- Senior civil servant warns system as it stood would not stop second virus wave
- Alex Cooper said at the moment it could only find 37 per cent of those needed
- Remarks will come as a blow to government as it tries to get people back to work
- Prime Minister Boris Johnson sad employees should try to return to offices
The UK’s coronavirus test and trace system would not stop the feared second wave because it can only find a third of the people it needs, a top civil servant admitted last night.
Alex Cooper, who looks after two of the five pillars of the test process, said it could only identify 37 per cent of the total contacts it needed to be fully effective.
The senior official admitted in an industry briefing, the number needed to be higher to make the system work properly.
Forms filled in as part of the system to help test and trace people who could be infected
Matt Hancock has describe the text and trace system as ‘world-beating’ in press conferences
He said: We need to be finding roughly half of the the people that have got Covid so that we can keep R down if test and trace is going to work.’
Concerns over the effectiveness of the system will come as a blow to Government heads who are desperately trying to encourage people to return to work in an effort to save the economy.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said last week he was hoping things would be nearly back to normal in time for Christmas.
Mr Cooper, in an update to industry figures reported by the Telegraph, Essentially where we sit with test and trace is we are identifying around a third of the the people we really should be finding.
Those who need to be contacted are sent messages by handlers who try to find other contacts
The UK has recorded 40 coronavirus -associated deaths today, bringing the total number of confirmed deaths during the pandemic to 45,273
‘So the main challenge for us now is to make sure that we can test more and identify those index cases.”
Government figures released last week suggested that the tracing service was finding 77 per cent of those who tested positive to get details of their contacts.
Those associated individuals would then have to self-isolate until their own test came back.
The Department of Health said last night that the service relied on people ‘ playing their part’.
Blackburn with Darwen Council imposed local restrictions in an effort to avoid lockdown
It came as the Independent said the system had failed to reach over half of contacts named by infected residents in outbreak-hit Blackburn with Darwen.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock was also said to have bowed to pressure to release the names of positive tested people to their local councils.
The Observer said he was expected to let local authorities have the identities of those infected to help them fight the pandemic on the ground