Test and Trace
6000 workers
I read yesterday that the Government is shedding 6,000 workers from the test-and-trace operations. 6000 is a large percentage of the 25,000 (24%) of the total number employees. So has the system reached Baroness Dido Hardings “Gold Standard” ?
As Sir Chris Ham said
“Contact tracing has to be led locally by people who work in the communities that are affected and understand them,They’re part-detectives, part-anthropologists: they work with leaders in faith groups, in community organisations, and public services, to understand why there are more cases in a particular area, and how to work with everyone to contain and reduce the challenges. You can’t do that sitting in a remote call centre.”
Sir Chris Ham
New Local Test and Trace
Now local councils are starting their OWN local test-and-trace operations in Blackburn, Leicester, Manchester, Calderdale and Liverpool. The Government has been forced to share the current and up to date information with the local health workers. If only to enable the test-and-trace effort to be better coordinated.
According to the Guardian Newspaper the central call-centre workers only manager to trace 56% of people’s contacts, whereas the figure for local health teams was 98%.
Hopefully, what will emerge will finally be a Test and Trace system that actually works.