[ad_1]
The head of Test and Trace defends the system and says that the public should improve by following the instructions
Baroness Dido Harding, director of Test and Trace, says the public needs to improve at following basic coronavirus prevention measures, such as hand washing, writes Sky business correspondent Paul Kelso.
He also told CBI’s annual conference that the controversial testing program he leads is only part of the solution to tackling the pandemic, and that he didn’t know how much testing his organization will be able to process by spring.
“There is no silver bullet to address COVID,” he said. “Hands, heads, space, we need to get better at that, Test and Trace will get better, but those two alone won’t be enough. We’re going to need massive full-scale testing, and a vaccine will come.”
When asked how many tests would be conducted in March as part of the prime minister’s ambition for a massive “moonshot” testing program, the former Talk Talk CEO said: “I don’t know … it’s too early to make sense of them. of scale and potential as far as spring. “
Test and Trace has been plagued with problems since its founding, including a supply crisis in September and the inability to increase the percentage of contacts of people who test positive.
Baroness Harding he insisted that performance has improved, saying the tests were available on all platforms “anywhere in the country on any day of the week,” and hinted that the lack of more contact tracing was due to high standards.
“Contact tracing is stubbornly stuck at 80%, but we set a high bar in England,” he said. “For example, we contact everyone in the same household, I know it is a problem for people who have everyone in a household counted as a contact.
“And we are very hard on ourselves. When we send you an email, we do not count you as contacted unless you respond to our email.”
