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At least a quarter of people who test positive for COVID-19 in the UK are being missed by contact tracers following up who they could have transmitted the virus on to.
Of the 5,949 people who tested positive for
coronavirus
between 4 and 10 June, only 73% provided details of who they had been in close contact with, according to the latest NHS figures.
But of the 44,895 people who were identified as close contacts of these people - and potentially at risk of having caught
COVID-19
- more than 40,900 (90%) were reached and asked to self-isolate.
Government defends track and trace amid concerns
The figures mean that at least a quarter of people who test positive for the virus are being missed because there is a disparity between the numbers of people testing positive and the numbers being referred to the contact tracers.
Yesterday, Health Secretary Matt Hancock explained the disparity was "largely because they are in-patients in hospital and therefore testing and tracing in the normal sense doesn't apply".
But the previous week Professor John Newton said there was "quite a lot of double counting in the number of cases reported", and Baroness Dido Harding has confirmed there are "errors in the data".
According to the data, the proportion of people who are missed by the contact tracing teams has remained largely unchanged from the week before.
In total, since 28 May when the track and trace system was rolled out, more than 14,000 people who have tested positive for COVID-19 have had their cases transferred to the tracing teams.
Of these just 72% have been reached and asked to provide the details of their recent close contacts, 90% of whom the tracers were able to contact and ask to self-isolate.
Matt Hancock had promised that a contact tracing app developed by the health service's innovation arm NHSX would be delivered by mid-May, allowing this manual process to be automated.
But development of the NHS app, which was being trialled on the Isle of Wight, has been fraught with delays and concerns about whether it works properly.
Contact tracing apps explained: The problems and potential
Yesterday, Lord Bethell told Parliament that something would be "up for the winter" but Sky News' technology correspondent Rowland Manthorpe says it is now an open question of whether it will even be delivered this year, and perhaps at all.
"Looking at the statistics today, it is obvious that the manual contact tracing system isn't getting everyone, and you have to wonder will we ever see the benefits that were promised," he said.
Even in countries where such apps have been rolled out, such as in France and Germany, there's no real proof that they have made much of a difference.
"We could just end up looking back at this phase and thinking that all of this conversation about apps was just a waste of time.
"Perhaps Bluetooth - which the phones use to record which other devices had been in close contact which each other - is not sensitive or accurate enough to trace contacts the way that's needed."
