CORONA CRISIS Boris doesn’t have a clue ...if test and trace fails we’ll have a second peak NEW SYSTEM A ‘DISGRACE
Tracker centre is ‘a shambles’
A CONTACT tracer last night lifted the lid on the “shambolic” track and trace system, revealing how junior recruits argued in chat rooms about whether coronavirus was real.
The whistleblower, one of 25,000 hired to locate contacts of those diagnosed, said many colleagues were young and naive and “did not get the gravity of the situation”.
Screenshots of messages sent by employees, where around 70 workers were logged on in a virtual call centre, suggest some felt woefully unprepared.
One read: “I’ve never had such s*** training in all my years of customer service.”
The insider, working from home using their own computer, said: “It’s shambolic. If they can’t sort out 70 people in a chatroom, how are they going to sort the rest of it?”
The contact tracers are supposed to have resources to pinpoint 10,000 contacts per day.
A Government spokesman said: “All 25,000 contact tracers have received appropriate training and are fully supported in their work.”
TOP doctors have branded the Government’s test and trace programme a “national disgrace” that could lead to a second wave of cases.
The system aims to find out how and where coronavirus is spreading by testing people with symptoms.
Experts have identified 17 possible symptoms but only those with one out of three are to be tested. These are a fever, cough or loss of taste or smell – which chief medical officer Chris Whitty says covers “95 per cent” of cases.
But other medics have rubbished his claim because those with other widely reported symptoms such as tiredness will miss out.
It means many could have the virus without knowing and pass it on.
Boris Johnson has also come under fire for saying he thought the list of symptoms was bigger than it was. Asked about it in a TV briefing on Thursday, a clearly confused PM replied: “I thought we were listing more, but anyway...”
GP Nick Summerton called Mr Johnson’s failure “bewildering” and the Government’s approach as “haphazard and amateur”.
And he said of Professor Whitty’s claim: “It is nonsense. He’s just made it up, basically. I don’t know what evidence he was using.
“Chris Whitty was trying to make out that the public couldn’t keep more than three symptoms in their mind. “There is an arrogance among senior politicians and their advisers that is dangerous. We really don’t want a second peak but there is a real risk of this if we build tracing contacts on poor foundations.”
The test and trace system launched last week but has been delayed amid problems recruiting 25,000 contact tracers and technical issues with the app.
Dr Summerton, who consulted on the app in April and takes calls from hundreds of people with Covid symptoms every day, claimed the policy has been rushed out too quickly and failure to widen the symptoms list risked missing up to 50 per cent of cases. He went on: “There were three things they needed to do before rolling this out: get testing ramped up – testing fewer than 100,000 a day is inexcusable now. If I was in that position, I would resign. I’d be embarrassed I hadn’t done the job I was employed to do.
“They need to widen the symptoms they’re listing. And they need a way of dealing with people who have a false negative result. About a third who are tested are told they haven’t got coronavirus when they actually have.
“Track and trace is becoming a shambles, just like testing has been a shambles. The whole thing is an embarrassment. It’s a disgrace.”
Dr Sarah Jarvis, a GP of 30 years