Concerns over surge in people not replying to test and trace
A SURGE in the number of people in Leicester who have not responded to test and trace messages after being confirmed to have coronavirus is causing concern among city health chiefs.
The council team have noticed a significant rise in the number of people who have tested positive but have failed to respond to the message they are sent from the government requiring them to say who they have been in contact with.
The council’s own test and trace teams have been given the task of finding those people with Covid19 that the Department of Health and Social Care is unable to contact.
On New Year’s Day alone, the council was asked to track down 170 people the government could not locate in order to gather information about their close contacts.
So far, the council has found 166 of them who have now passed on details of their contacts to Public Health England so they can be told to self-isolate before they potentially pass the virus on.
The essential work to trace those who test positive, and make sure that they and their close contacts self-isolate, is being hampered by people who are not providing the information they’re required to give to the authorities.
Public health experts are urging those who test positive to respond immediately to the messages they receive from the national test and trace service – and to fill out the online form they are asked to complete so that their contacts can be swiftly traced and asked to selfisolate too.
Leicester’s public health director Professor Ivan Browne said: “What we’re seeing is a growing number of people who are failing to respond to an automated message which asks them to provide details of the people they have been in contact with.
“This means that we don’t know if they’ve seen the automated message – and therefore they don’t know that they’ve tested positive and need to self-isolate.
“But if they’re not completing the online form, and providing details of their contacts and their movements, the track and trace process can’t continue – and that means that the virus is allowed to spread unchecked.
“Our team is spending far too much time contacting these individuals and gathering information about the people they’ve been in close contact with, when that time could be better spent helping those who are genuinely unable to complete an online form.
“I’d like to take this opportunity to remind people that if you test positive for coronavirus, you are breaking the law if you don’t stay at home and self-isolate for 10 days – and it’s your duty to share information about the people you may have infected with the virus. Tracing your contacts, and getting them to self-isolate too, is essential if we are to stop the spread of the virus.”
Since December 7, the city council has been empowered to contact anyone in Leicester who tests positive for the virus, if they fail to respond to an automated message within eight hours.
Leicester City Council was the first local authority in the country to be given access to this data by Public Health England.
Between December 7 and January 3, 1,849 out of 2,023 cases referred to the team have been traced.