Government 'lost control' of Covid pandemic by ditching contact tracing early on

05 October 2023 , 19:38

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The Government's handling of the Covid-19 Test and Trace system has been criticised (Image: PA)

The Government “lost control” of the pandemic when it abandoned contact tracing early on, the Covid-19 Inquiry has heard.

The British Medical Association said the Tories “abandoned basic public health protection” when setting up a privatised Test and Trace system. Two months earlier the Government had halted community testing and contact tracing in March 2020 due to a lack of PCR test stockpiles.

Ministers directed that testing be focused on test hospital patients and healthcare workers, as it moved from a “contain” to a “delay” phase. Prof Philip Banfield, BMA council chair, said: “We couldn’t understand the decision to abandon contact tracing.”

The £37 billion privatised Test and Trace programme was led by Tory Peer Baroness Dido Harding (Barcroft Media via Getty Images)

Age UK said there was a “sense of fatalism” around the protection and care of the elderly. NHS Test and Trace was set up in May 2020 costing £37 billion and using agency call centre staff who were largely not medically trained. It was announced by then-Health Secretary Matt Hancock and led by Tory Peer Baroness Dido Harding. Prof Banfield criticised this decision not to use existing public health teams employed by local councils.

Prof Banfield criticised the Government's decision not to use existing public health teams employed by local councils (Ian Vogler / Daily Mirror)

He said: “We couldn’t understand why the Government was apparently abandoning basic public health protection measures. “Our local public health doctors were prepared for a pandemic. This is their bread and butter. We seemed to have abandoned that first principle of control of an infectious outbreak by trying to work through testing and isolating and making sure that you can support people to do that.”

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Also giving evidence, Caroline Abrahams, charity director for Age UK, described an “underlying assumption that older people with care needs would be unlikely to survive” among scientists and public health leaders.

She said: “I think from them there was a sense that there wasn’t much that could be done if the virus did get into a care home. To a degree they were right but not all older people are the same… some were fit and well and didn’t have comorbidities.”

It comes a day after the inquiry heard that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak blocked financial support for people to isolate at home during his time as Chancellor. Former Chief Scientific Officer Sir Patrick Vallance wrote in his diary: “Chancellor blocking all notion of paying to get people to isolate despite all the evidence this will be needed.” At the time infections and Covid deaths were surging and some workers faced losing their income if they stayed home.

Martin Bagot