Contact tracers reach fewer than one in 20 quarantine travellers

CORONAVIRUS contact tracers have been in touch with fewer than one in 20 Scots who are required to quarantine after travelling abroad.

New figures also show the National Contact Tracing Centre failed to reach more than 1,100 travellers it wanted to check to see if they were complying with self-isolation rules – including more than 250 in the week ending Sunday September 20 alone.

Figures from Public Health Scotland show that between June 22 and September 20, 95,564 people arrived in Scotland from countries where quarantine is required – such as France, Spain and Greece.

Since June 22, contact tracers have successfully been in touch with 4,581 people to check if they are self-isolating two weeks following their return – just under 4.8 per cent of those required to do so.

But there were 1,129 people they were unable to contact, the data shows.

The most recent figures, for the week ending September 20, show 12,386 travellers arriving in Scotland were required to quarantine, with of whom contact tracers managed to reach 312. There were 258 people who they tried, but failed, to contact. The figures prompted Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie to demand action from the Scottish Government, saying: ‘The holes in the quarantine system urgently need fixed.’

Mr Rennie said while Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf had told him he wants spotchecks on returning travellers to be increased, ‘the very opposite’ of this has happened. Mr Rennie added: ‘Among the fraction of travellers that tracers have sought to spot-check, in excess of 1,000 couldn’t be found. Experts have told us some people returning from abroad haven’t played by the rules. The weak system has proven unable to identify this, let alone do anything about it, and that was when virus elimination was the goal.’

A Scottish Government spokesman said that ‘100 per cent of those requiring to quarantine are contacted by us by email.

‘As the number of flights into Scotland has increased, the National Contact Tracing Centre has been exceeding our target and contacting around 600 returning passengers per week.’