Crucial ‘track and trace’ plan to beat coronavirus still weeks away because number of infected is ‘too high’
A CRUCIAL new ‘track and trace’ plan to beat coronavirus is still weeks away after it emerged the current number of cases is far too high.
Chasing down people that new sufferers have mixed with to halt contagion chains has proved hugely successful in countries like South Korea and Germany
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Health Secretary Matt Hancock last week announced the NHS is recruiting 18,000 contact tracers to do the same in Britain.
But for track and trace to work, ministers believe the number who currently have the virus will need to be reduced to 100,000 first, The Sun can reveal.
At the moment, the estimated number is still running at 350,000, according to the King’s College London tracker.
Without the track and trace scheme in place, it is likely the Cabinet will decide the full lockdown will have to stay in place beyond the next review point on May 7 in nine days time.
One senior government figure told The Sun: “For track and trace to work, we need both the reproduction rate as well as the actual level of infection to come down.
“While the R rate is below one, we’ve got some way to go on overall numbers.
"We need to get the infection pool down to around 100,000 live cases before we can control it with track and trace and the NHS app.”
Professional volunteers for the track and trace scheme have still not been contacted by the government, it also emerged.
One environmental health professional who gave his name to Public Health England two weeks ago told The Sun last night he still hasn’t received a call to ask him to begin training.
Ministers also privately admitted last night that the government’s target of 100,000 tests a day by the end of the month will be missed by a week.
With just two days to go until the deadline on Thursday, Mr Hancock last night insisted he is still “confident” he will meet his target, while admitting there was “a lot of work still to do this week”.
But insiders say it was blown off course by a delay in regulators signing off home testing kits, which have only just started being despatched.
The latest daily figures show a capacity to carry out 53,892 a day, but just 29,058 being completed.
No10 also said it will be won't be possible to know if the 100,000 target is hit on Thursday as it takes up to 72 hours for the results of home tests to be reported.
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Public Health England have faced serious questions why it halted contact tracing in the UK on March 12.
Confirming the need to push down the number of cases before it can be reintroduced, Matt Hancock told the No10 press conference last night: “The lower the number of new cases, the more effective a system of test track and case will be”.
“We need to get the track and the trace part up and running as we bring tests on line so we can bring the overall number down.”
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