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The government's new contact tracing service finally launches tomorrow. Two weeks later than planned. Two and a half months after we gave up on test and trace the first time around. And without the app they expected to do much of the heavy lifting.
February 13: a govt blog explains "contact tracing is a fundamental part of outbreak control used by public health professionals around the world", but "there would be less emphasis on contact tracing" if we start seeing "sustained transmission". https://publichealthmatters.blog.gov.uk/2020/02/13/expert-interview-what-is-contact-tracing/
March 12: govt gives up trying to contain covid-19, after confirming only 590 cases and 10 deaths. Contact tracing and community testing abandoned. Focus switches to testing only patients arriving in hospital. Deaths soar as the virus spreads untracked.
https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2020-03-12/u-k-abandons-effort-to-contain-virus-moves-to-delay-the-worst
https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2020-03-12/u-k-abandons-effort-to-contain-virus-moves-to-delay-the-worst
It later turns out that while Public Health England only has 290 contact tracing staff, 5,000 trained council health staff were available but were never asked to help. As a result only 3,500 contacts were ever traced before they gave up entirely. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/apr/06/uk-missed-coronavirus-contact-tracing-opportunity-experts-say
March 14: our Chief Medical Officer says it's "no longer necessary to identify every case". The WHO says we're wrong. "You can’t fight a virus if you don’t know where it is. Find, isolate, test and treat every case, to break the chains of transmission." https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-update-testing-news-herd-immunity-who-uk-cases-map-a9402051.html
March 30: the British Medical Journal asks "why is the UK government ignoring WHO's advice" and urges them to restart testing and tracing. At this point we're still struggling to do 10,000 tests a day, making this largely impossible. https://www.bmj.com/content/368/bmj.m1284
April 17: @MattHancock says we'll start contact tracing again. But gives no time frame for this.
A former WHO director points out that parts of the country with few cases could have avoided lockdown entirely if we'd kept doing this in the first place. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/17/uk-to-start-coronavirus-contact-tracing-again
A former WHO director points out that parts of the country with few cases could have avoided lockdown entirely if we'd kept doing this in the first place. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/17/uk-to-start-coronavirus-contact-tracing-again
April 23: @MattHancock says he's going to have 18,000 people in place to handle contact tracing at or before the launch of an app in mid May. "This test, track and trace will be vital to stop a second peak of the virus."
Spoiler: none of this happens. https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/health-and-social-care-secretarys-statement-on-coronavirus-covid-19-23-april-2020
Spoiler: none of this happens. https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/health-and-social-care-secretarys-statement-on-coronavirus-covid-19-23-april-2020
April 28: Remember those 5,000 council health staff? They're still not being used. The govt still wants to run everything centrally, but hasn't hired ANYONE yet.
Experts say a centralized system is no match for staff with local knowledge and experience. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/apr/28/contact-tracing-cant-be-run-by-westminster-experts-warn
Experts say a centralized system is no match for staff with local knowledge and experience. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/apr/28/contact-tracing-cant-be-run-by-westminster-experts-warn
May 5: the deputy Chief Medical Officer admits we gave up on test and trace in March because we didn't have enough capacity, not because it was no longer appropriate, as she claimed at the time.
Countries with better tracing programs saw far less deaths. https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/uk-community-testing-capacity-jenny-harries_uk_5eb15685c5b60a9277820cff/
Countries with better tracing programs saw far less deaths. https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/uk-community-testing-capacity-jenny-harries_uk_5eb15685c5b60a9277820cff/
May 10: the govt is STILL only using "a small number" of trained local health officials. Instead it's hiring unskilled staff, paying minimum wage, and ignoring training offers from professionals in favour of Serco. Because they're usually so reliable. 
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-test-and-trace-programme-cases-deaths-uk-a9503651.html
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-test-and-trace-programme-cases-deaths-uk-a9503651.html
May 13: the government insists hiring is on track and they'll have 18,000 staff in place by the end of next week (May 24th).
This really stretches the definition of mid May.
Spoiler: the service still wasn't running then either. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/nhs-coronavirus-tracing-app-to-roll-out-nationwide-in-mid-may-53gx6j676
This really stretches the definition of mid May.
Spoiler: the service still wasn't running then either. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/nhs-coronavirus-tracing-app-to-roll-out-nationwide-in-mid-may-53gx6j676
May 15: govt science advisor says giving up tracing so early was a mistake and "we should not be lifting more [lockdown] restrictions until test, isolation, contact tracing is in place... We must learn the lessons of why this epidemic got out of control". https://twitter.com/Independent/status/1261262756214382593
May 17: the government claims it has now recruited 17,000 contact tracers and will be ready to launch the service by the end of the month. It's Sunday, and the launch has already been delayed by a week since .. er .. Wednesday. https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1262056717405347840
May 20: as expected, training isn't going great. Some recruits report spending days just trying to login, taking part in online sessions with 100 recruits to 1 trainer, and being paid to sit around doing nothing because of delays in additional training. https://twitter.com/guardian/status/1262980219482320896
May 20: meanwhile @BorisJohnson claims 25,000 contact tracing staff will be in place on June 1st. This is more than originally promised, possibly because the app still isn't ready to launch, meaning more manual tracing work will be required. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52741331
May 20: the NHS Confederation warns that nobody has consulted health and social care leaders, or told them how the tracing system will work. Local public health officials STILL aren't involved.
This doesn't bode well. https://twitter.com/NHSConfed/status/1263382802512392192
This doesn't bode well. https://twitter.com/NHSConfed/status/1263382802512392192
May 27: @MattHancock announces tracing service will launch tomorrow. If you're called by them it's your "civic duty" to self-isolate for 14 days, even if you don't have symptoms. Sadly the whole Dominic Cummings fiasco rather undermines this message. https://twitter.com/MattHancock/status/1265710143171375104
https://twitter.com/MattHancock/status/1265710143171375104
