Coronavirus diary, Tuesday 11 August

Six thousand of Health Secretary Matt Hancock's test and trace army have been dismissed as he loses the battle to provide England with a world class system to limit the spread of coronavirus.

They were part of the 18,000 strong force, hired at great cost to run call centres in England to track down contacts.

Three months ago, when he promised that England's system would be world class, instead of following other countries, he decided to set up an app system piloted in the Isle of Wight, seen to be a perfect testing ground.

But it did not work. and England has since relied on a government controlled system with call centre staff helping  to trace contacts. Despite more promises and repeated assurances that it was achieving good results and reaching targets, the statistics were damning, hence the rethink.

This time the government were fortunate to have encouraging results in the towns hit by local outbreaks where testing and tracing has been handled locally.

Under the new system, the NHS will use the remainder of the call centre army to provide information supplied from the NHS to local authorities.

The government has been fortunate that in recent local outbreaks test and trace has been effectively dealt with by local government health officials with their community knowledge and expertise.

The government's response has been depressingly familiar. No explanation. No apology

The Health Minister, Edward Argar, insists it has been successful and that it would be strengthened by giving more powers to local public health teams. 

'We have always said that the system would evolve and that is what it is doing here is exactly evolving and flexing.'

Recalling the 1962 smallpox outbreak

I recently recalled how, almost 60 years ago, when smallpox struck South Wales, killing 19 people, Caerphilly urban district council's Medical Officer of Health and its other health officials successfully carried out their own test and trace campaign, limiting the epidemic

Bradford's Director of Public Health, Dr Sarah Muckle, is confident  that a local test and trace programme is the key to breaking the chain of  transmission.

The local scheme would work with and support the NHS programme by following up with phone calls, texts and home calls, she explains..

 We now seem to be on the right track, at last.