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The coronavirus testing and tracking system was condemned today as “barely functional” as its czar admitted that demand was up to four times greater than capacity, while 90% of tests fell short of the response target of 24. hours.
The Guardian has seen documents showing tracers taking up to two weeks to contact friends, family and co-workers of people diagnosed with Covid-19, throughout the period of self-isolation.
But amid mounting anger and rising queues at testing centers, Dido Harding, head of the £ 10bn NHS test and trace program designed to prevent a second wave of Covid-19, told the MPs on Thursday: default. “
It came as sources said Leeds was expected to become the latest city to face enhanced lockdown measures, bringing the number of people subject to restrictions to more than 10 million, including nearly 2 million in north-east England. Official figures confirmed a 75% increase in weekly positive cases in England last week.
Only 1.9% of people using a home test kit in England got their results within 24 hours a week to September 9, according to official figures, the lowest percentage since the test was launched and the crawl in May. Results for 33.3% of in-person tests were changed within 24 hours, compared to 66.5% the previous week, leading to delays in contacts needed to self-isolate.
Harding, who also heads the newly created National Institute for Health Protection, told MPs: “We made a conscious decision due to the large increase in demand to extend the turnaround time to process the amount of evidence in recent weeks. “
Chronology
What the government said about the tests
Boris johnson
“We are not only controlling the pandemic, with very, very low deaths and hospital admissions, but we will continue to address it, with local closures and with our superlative test and trace system.”
Boris johnson
“NHS Test and Trace is doing a heroic job, and today most people get a test result in person in 24 hours, and the average trip is less than 10 miles if someone has to make a trip to get one … [To Keir Starmer] We make the tough decisions, all he does is sit on the sidelines and tent. “
Boris johnson
Boris johnson
“We don’t have enough testing capacity now because, in an ideal world, I would like to test absolutely everyone who wants a test right away … Yes, there is a long way to go, and we will work day and night to make sure we go. there.”
Matt hancock
“Of course there is a challenge in testing … We have sent testing out to all schools to make sure they have testing available. But of course I also recognize the challenges of getting evidence … Evidence is available, although it is challenging to get. “
He admitted that the demand for coronavirus testing in the UK was three to four times greater than the total daily capacity of 240,000 – 82,000 on the NHS and Public Health England and 160,000 in the community.
It means test requests could amount to nearly 1 million per day, based on estimates that include the number of callers to 119 and visitors to the government website, although “there will be a double-counting on that. The figures Harding promised would now be published daily.
Surveys outside the testing centers found that 27% of people who came did not have at least one coronavirus symptom as stipulated, he said.
When asked by Greg Clark, chairman of the parliament’s science and technology committee, if he was saying 27% were lying, he said those who walked to a local center without an appointment had made no such claim. “I fully understand why people are worried and scared,” he added.
The Guardian was told that in several cases, contact trackers working for a company hired by the government to ensure that close contacts of confirmed Covid cases are tracked down and told to self-isolate have called in. contacts only to discover they were the first identified as at risk up to 14 days prior.
One contact tracker said: “Some people are told through testing and tracing that they need to isolate themselves when their period of isolation is over. I called someone a few days ago to say I was a contact for a confirmed case and therefore needed to isolate himself. But halfway through the call I realized that her period of self-isolation began on August 31 ”. Test and trace records related to the contacts appear to confirm the claims of the trackers.
Munira Wilson, a health spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats, said the UK testing system “seems barely functional” adding: “The testing system is collapsing. People are unable to access evidence, response times are down, cases are increasing. The government runs the risk of losing control of the virus.
Professor John Ashton, the former North West England Regional Director for Public Health, said the system’s performance was so poor that it could lead to legal claims against authorities. After seven or 14 days with self-isolation, “the horse has shot up, they have already spread it,” he warned.
“If people get sick and die, and it is spread to people who should not be affected because we should have been more aware of this, we are facing gross negligence.”
In a further blow, some of the software system used by a contact tracing company when dealing with contacts of known traders is claimed to have been malfunctioning this week, limiting the amount of work it can do.
The firm has told some contact trackers to update their computer screens only every five minutes as they cannot cope with more regular use, the documents suggest. Some contacts have become so exasperated by the time it takes for a call that they have hung up, the trackers said.
The Department of Health has been contacted for comment.
A woman with confirmed Covid-19 provided four contacts to the national contact tracing system, but said that nine days after testing positive, three of them had not been contacted. The one she has is her husband, who lives with her.
“It’s a disaster,” said Rosie Allan, who had been on a weekend break at a Somerset hotel with friends, who subsequently tested positive. “It will be so much better if people get in touch with their contacts. Obviously, it is not a world victory. “
She said she was contacted by a call center two days after her positive test and that it took the operator around 40 minutes to collect details from four people. She took the phone number of one of them, accepting names and addresses for the rest.
The 18,371 people who tested positive for the virus between Sept. 3-9 is the highest weekly number since the test and trace was launched in late May. The latest progress report showed that 14% of tests returned a result in less than 24 hours in the week through September 9, up from 32% the week before.
Jeanelle de Gruchy, president of the Association of Public Health Directors, said Thursday that her colleagues across the country reported that contact tracing was “slow or inappropriate.” “We all want and need it to improve quickly,” he said in an urgent funding call for local public health first responders.
“The situation is simply unsustainable. We cannot keep our communities safe on just a budget. A package of emergency funds for the prevention and management of local outbreaks is now urgent; we need more people in our places and money in our councils to get the job done. “
In a Commons debate on the new restrictions imposed on nearly 2 million in northeast England due to rising infections, Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, criticized Matt Hancock for a widespread lack of testing.
He reminded Hancock that in May he had assured MPs that a major expansion of testing capacity for anyone five years and older meant “now we have testing for everyone.” Ashworth added, “However, four months later, for the British people, it has not become a test and a trace, but rather a trace of a test.”
