UK health secretary Matt Hancock has set a target for recruiting contact tracers Pippa Fowles/DPA/PA Images
The UK government has refused to say how many covid-19 contact tracers it has employed, with less than three weeks to go until its target of recruiting 18,000 of them by mid-May.
Health secretary Matt Hancock set this deadline on Tuesday, but could not put a figure on how had been recruited at that point.
“I’m sorry I don’t have the information to hand as to exactly how many we’ve recruited, but that is underway,” he told New ˾þ. “I don’t have the data to hand but I’ll try to find that for you,” he added.
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However, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has now told New ˾þ it is not disclosing the number. A spokesperson confirmed that recruitment had begun and said work was underway to ensure a rapid increase in tracers, but would not say how many there are now.
Contact tracers interview people who have tested positive for covid-19 to establish their potential close contacts with others. They then contact people who may have been exposed to the coronavirus to advise them to self-isolate. Some of the 18,000 are expected to be existing and recently retired healthcare professionals, who will be recruited over the next few weeks.
“The NHS is developing a contact tracing app, which alongside effective tracing and testing, will pave the way to safely reducing current social distancing measures,” says a DHSC spokesperson. The 18,000 contact tracers are meant to in place , so the two can work in tandem.
The government had also promised to reach 100,000 covid-19 tests a day by today, but it will not be known until Friday or Saturday whether the target has been hit or missed, due to a lag in data gathering.
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