No.165 - Test, Track, Trace … and Isolate!
Dear James,
What is it about your government? It blusters along, pretending omniscience, assuring us that they know what they are doing and then, with consistent regularity, crashing into the brick wall of reality. It was on May 20th, that your blusterer-in-chief, Boris Johnson claimed that the NHS Test, Track and Trace System would be ‘world beating’ by June. Today it is mid-August and they have just announced that they are cutting 6,000 of the 23,000 tracers employed because clearly the system needs ‘adjustments’.
The key to a successful test, track and trace system is information. Masses of it. The ultimate expression of such a system would be an electronic map of the country which identifies local outbreaks with names, addresses and a list of possible infection spreading contacts. How far away from that ideal we are! Way back on May 5th, the Government hailed its decision to develop its own, second to none, contact-tracing app. Despite all the brouhaha of its launch, the system failed to pick up 96% of close contacts with people who possessed Apple I-phones and on June 18th, Hancock had to admit the app was flawed. Germany and South Korea already had tracing apps that worked but our government, out of a surfeit of arrogance and conceit, decided they knew better. Only now after all this vast expenditure are they going with Apple/Google models. But buy it from Germany? Perish the thought!
The app was only one part of Boris ‘world beating’ system. At its centre would be a huge testing resource set up around the country and run by large private companies such as Serco, Sitel and Deloittes. They recruited 23,000 new trackers who had to be trained and prepared from scratch. Although the government pumped millions of pounds of taxpayers money into these companies, a recent study showed that this ‘world beating system’ identified 80% of infected people but, of them, only 75% of their contacts were traced. 75% of 80% is about an 60% efficacy rate. Overall contacts reached by Test and Trace fell from 51% down to 46% in a week. With 40-60% of the target being untraced, the potential for spreading is immense. Your government’s system is clearly neither world beating nor even half effective. It is not fit for purpose James.
This all smacks of Mr Cummings’s penchant for centralizing everything around his own self-confessed genius. Remember his plan to put himself and Boris at the centre of a Downing Street web, sending out instructions to the nation on a minute by minute basis? Neither Mr Cummings nor Boris care about how our country really works. Our nation already had teams of local public health inspectors who know their areas well and are perfectly placed to respond to local outbreaks. We also have teams of localised testers and analysts in small laboratories and universities around the country. This huge resource was ignored, its experts left sitting on their hands as Boris and Cummings imposed their vision upon us all. The magnificent duo were at the centre of things and were ‘all seeing’. They didn’t need the help of those locals or Johnny foreigner. They knew what they were doing.
Back home, local authorities have now, in despair, started to set up their own test, track and trace systems. They include Greater Manchester, Blackburn with Darwen council in Lancashire, and Calderdale council in West Yorkshire. They had to plead with Hancock to share local data but they knew that ahead of the return of children to school in September they must be able to act quickly and locally. Meanwhile, South Korea, had opened public testing to everyone, regardless of symptoms, in February.
James, beneath their flimsy self-assurance, your government is in chaos, stumbling from one disaster to another. While Dido Harding, charged with heading the Test, Track and Trace system, continues, along with Messrs Hancock, Williamson, Jenrick and others, to ruin their reputations, our nation has lost trust in your government. At the head of this government is Boris who, like a small child playing with his Meccano set, is full of boyish enthusiasms as he pulls this lever or that but quickly loses interest when the levers don’t work. Unfortunately, this Meccano set happens to be the British people and the British economy.
Test, Track and Trace does of course have a final exhortation. It is ‘isolate!’ Isn’t it about time that someone entered Boris’s playpen and did exactly that to our Prime Minister? Before any more damage is done to our nation!
Kind regards,
BH – Your Concerned Constituent