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The government’s £ 22bn test and trace system has failed to reach more than 100,000 people exposed to the coronavirus in the worst-hit areas of England since the second wave began, official figures show, and four in 10 they were not asked to self-isolate.
An analysis by The Guardian found that the private arm of the test and trace program had reached 58% of close contacts of infected people in the 20 worst affected areas of the country since 9 September, and had barely improved since its launch.
Boris Johnson defended the value of the distressed system at a Downing Street briefing on Monday after he received another £ 7bn in funding, bringing its cost to £ 22bn this year. This equates to almost a fifth of the NHS budget and roughly the same as that of the Department of Transport.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock told MPs Tuesday that testing and tracing “was working to greatly reduce transmission” and had “broken chains of transmission hundreds of thousands of times” before England’s second national lockdown. November 5.
However, official figures suggest that its performance has declined as demand has increased. The proportion of close contacts reached in England fell to its lowest level in October, just over 60%.
In the areas with the highest infection rates, the private companies Serco and Sitel have reached 58% of the people exposed since the start of the second wave, which means that the program has barely improved its success rate of 55% in its first 11 weeks.
The government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) has said that 80% of close contacts of an infected person must be contacted and told to isolate themselves within 48 to 72 hours for the national program to be effective. .
In all, 109,903 people in the worst affected areas were not contacted when they should have been in the 11 weeks to Nov. 4, the Guardian found, leaving them at risk of further spreading the disease.
Serco and Sitel received an initial payment of £ 192 million for the first three months of the program, and the contract value reached £ 730 million over 12 months.
Alice Wiseman, public health director for the Gateshead council, said she was concerned that the national system was not reaching four out of 10 potentially infectious people in the city. “It means that there are more than 3,400 people who can spread the virus without knowing it. It is essential that we test and track in a brilliant position for when we come out of the lockdown, ”he said.
Another public health director said the low success rate of contact tracing had “undoubtedly contributed to our continued high rates” of infection. There are also concerns that the system will struggle to cope with rapid tests being rolled out in more parts of England from next week.
Labor MP Justin Madders, a shadow health minister, said: “It has been clear for months that the private test and trace parts are seriously failing and that the government has had enough time to fix or get rid of private providers. .
“This second block should have been used to finally solve these problems, but time has been wasted and there is a great risk that the infections could get out of control again. It seems that the government almost denied the necessary action. “
In Bradford, the test and trace failed to call 17,645 people who had been in close contact with an infected person – half the number identified and by far the worst of the 20 worst affected areas.
In Blackburn with Darwen, which has the UK’s highest per capita infection rate since the start of the pandemic, only 50% of close contacts were reached during the second wave. In Leicester and Oldham, the figure is 53% and 54% respectively.
The analysis, which runs from September 9 to November 4, is based on figures released weekly by the Department of Health and Social Assistance (DHSC). It is not known how many of the 109,903 people were not contacted due to a lack of contact information, as DHSC does not publish these data by geography.
Susan Hinchcliffe, Bradford’s council leader, urged the government to allow local authorities to track close contacts, as well as those who have tested positive for coronavirus. Currently, the councils only have the power to track infected people, not their close contacts.
“Naturally, this worries me because we have to make sure that everyone who may have the virus isolates themselves because that is the only way to get the virus,” he said. “We all know that this system should have been designed with national and local work hand in hand.”
The Department of Health and Welfare said: “Contact tracing is working in all parts of the country. The most recent weekly statistics show that a record number of positive cases were transferred to contact trackers with 323,080 people reached and asked to self-isolate – people who might have otherwise unknowingly spread the virus. In high-outbreak areas, like the Northwest, we’ve reached nearly 500,000 people. This is undoubtedly slowing the spread of Covid and saving lives.
“NHS Test and Trace has been driven by the introduction of more than 150 local tracing associations where city councils receive extensive data and support to manage local outbreaks, working closely with a limited group of NHS contact trackers.”
