Common questions and their answers

The NHS Test and Trace brings together testing, contact tracing and outbreak management into one service. It will play an important part in the wider strategy to save lives and to protect the health and care system as we start to move out of lockdown.

The more rapidly we can identify people who may have been at risk of infection and, if necessary, advise them to self-isolate, the more effectively we can reduce the spread of the virus and maintain transmission at low levels.

Contact tracing is a well-established method of preventing and controlling outbreaks such as measles and TB. Tracers work with a person who has an infection to help them remember everyone who they have had close contact with while they could have been infectious. They then contact and warn everyone who might be at risk, as quickly as possible, offering advice on how they should act in order to help prevent further spread.

A ‘contact’ is a person who has been close to someone who has tested positive for coronavirus (COVID-19) any time from two days before the person was symptomatic up to seven days from onset of symptoms.

Contact tracers will seek to contact all cases and contacts they can identify. The Covid 19 app will provide the added ability to warn contacts about people with coronavirus that they wouldn’t ordinarily be able to identify, such as a fellow passenger on a bus.

If you test positive for coronavirus, the NHS Test and Trace service will send you a text or email alert with instructions of how to share details of people you have been in close contact with and places you have visited.

The NHS Test and Trace service will not tell your contacts your name or details. It will simply tell them that they have been in close contact with someone who has tested positive for coronavirus and need to act.

No, if you have been told you are a ‘contact’ you must self- isolate for 14 days from the date of your last contact with someone who tested positive for coronavirus.