CONTACT TRACING SYSTEM HAS FAILED – MURPHY
Last week, in response to questioning by Wexford Deputy Verona Murphy, An Tánaiste Leo Varadkar conceded failures in the contact tracing system and argued that the country would need the army to contact trace effectively.
Independent TD Murphy has expressed her surprise that the government have abandoned their tracing policy.
Deputy Murphy said: ‘On May 8 I requested from Leo Varadkar a roadmap for testing and tracing. The (acting) Taoiseach responded, “I will indeed ask the HSE to produce a roadmap” and on May 14 the Taoiseach announced in the Dáil that very roadmap.’
Introducing the roadmap, he said: ‘Our mission is to get people back to work, get businesses opened again, get the economy humming so that we have the resources we need to build a better society. We will maintain an intense focus on the virus and follow 4 guiding principles, Isolate, Test, Trace and Treat, so we can quickly react if things go wrong and if we see an increase in cases.
‘ The crucial thing is to keep doing the right thing, stick to the strategy & maintain our focus’.
The Deputy said: ‘However, last week when I highlighted problems in our tracing system, Leo Varadkar’s response was very worrying. He said, “we are contact tracing 1000 people a day, and to do anymore we would need to bring in the army”.
Deputy Murphy said: ‘Everyone must play their part. Tracing 1,000 people a day when we are testing 100,000 a week is not effective. On the day of my question, October 15, we had 1205 new Covid 19 cases confirmed. If each of those cases had an average of five close contacts, we would need capacity to contact trace over 6,000 people.’
Meanwhile it has also emerged that the HSE have been instructing people not to share the fact that they are going for a test with anyone else, she said.
Deputy Murphy said: ‘I have been contacted over the weekend by over ten people who have been told by the HSE not to tell anyone they are being tested. The consequences of this course of action are obvious. Close contacts need to know this information so they can restrict their movements to stop the spread.’
The government’s handling of this pandemic response is now indefensible, she added.
‘ The Taoiseach must take responsibility for our Covid response and immediately set money aside for the provision of as many jobs as is necessary to competently contact trace, in order to avoid yo-yo lockdowns.’