It is No10 that’s dilly-dallying, not the civil servants

What does the Leicester outbreak tell us about Britain’s handling of Covid-19? Is it a sign of further bungling or an indication we are starting to get things right?

Cases there have spiked in recent weeks, with 866 – 29 per cent of its total – in the two weeks to June 23.

The Government announced not a Chinese or German-style sealing-off of the area but some special measures. Additional testing capacity was being trucked in, and it was announced last night that non-essential shops would have to close again and bars and restaurants would remain shut.

You can compare the Leicester spike to a recent German localised outbreak, although it is not as severe, says a

Whitehall official. A local lockdown would be “entirely appropriate to nip it in the bud”, they added.

But officials do not think the outbreak has been caused by lockdown being lifted too fast. Overall, it shows “the track-and-trace system is working and we can quickly identify new clusters of cases, trace them and take action accordingly”, they said.

Is this a fair assessment? Overall, I would say that it is. We’ve seen local outbreaks spring up all over the world in countries that have successfully pushed back the virus. Widespread testing should mean they are picked up early. Track-and-trace systems cut local transmission chains.

And the implementation of local mitigation measures should mean such outbreaks remain contained.

This is what cluster-busting looks like and we should expect it to become the norm for a good few months.

There remain concerns, however. New cases per head of the population in the UK remain low at about 1.5 per 100,000 but our total case numbers are high compared to most other western European countries. Community surveillance data last week suggested a slight increase in the incidence of the virus in England. It would a surprise if it does not show a further uptick later this week after the initial relaxing of lockdown on June 1.

There are also capacity concerns. Our contact tracing system is not yet firing on all cylinders, detecting only about a third of cases overall. Testing capacity, although much improved, is still nothing like as far-reaching or as quick as it needs to be.

Transparency is another issue. Local public health officials say they are not being given access to data quick enough to nip outbreaks in the bud. In many countries, real-time street-level data is available.

Lastly, there are the politicians, one saying one thing, another saying something completely different. Even now it is not clear exactly what measures are being taken.

The Leicester cluster demonstrates that Britain’s cluster-busting system is in place. It’s No10, not civil servants, that are dallying.

Local public health officials say they are not being given access to data quick enough