Testing ready soon says PM, as app delayed

A TESTING and tracing system seen as the key to easing the lockdown will be up and running by June 1, Boris Johnson has promised, but the rollout of the contact tracing app will come later.

The Prime Minister said 25,000 staff would be in place by the start of next month – the earliest possible date earmarked for the gradual reopening of schools and shops in England – and they would be capable of tracking the contacts of up to 10,000 new Covid-19 cases a day.

His comments came after Cabinet minister Robert Buckland conceded there may not be a “uniform approach” to reopening England’s schools in the face of opposition from councils and unions.

The Government’s deputy chief scientific adviser, Professor Dame Angela McLean, has said that the modelling for changes to the lockdown were based on a “highly effective track, trace and isolate system” being in place.

At Prime Minister’s Questions, Mr Johnson said: “We’re making fast progress in testing and tracing and I have great confidence that by June 1 we will have a system that will enable us, that will help us very greatly, to defeat this disease and move the country forward.”

The capacity to trace the contacts of 10,000 people daily far exceeds current levels of confirmed Covid-19 cases. Widespread contact tracing was abandoned in mid-March as the number of cases soared in the UK.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said last week that the contact tracing app would be rolled out across England from mid-May but that has now been pushed back.

Mr Johnson did not mention the app, currently being trialled on the Isle of Wight, as part of his plan for June 1.

Downing Street later confirmed that the app would be rolled out “in the coming weeks” – after human contact tracing. The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said the app “is only one part of the system”.