Public urged to follow advice to help Test and Trace work
The NHS Test and Trace system will only work in the West Midlands if residents support it and continue to follow the guidance, a health boss has said.
The new scheme, seen as key to easing the lockdown restrictions, was rolled out across England on Thursday.
Under the new system, people who come into close contact with a coronavirus sufferer will be told to self-isolate for 14 days.
Speaking at a West Midlands Combined Authority briefing on Friday, Dr Sue Ibbotson, West Midlands centre director for Public Health England, said the contact tracing is an addition to the social distancing measures and hand washing guidance already in place to stop the spread of Covid-19.
She added that the system would only work in the region if people supported it and followed the guidance when advised.
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Dr Ibbotson compared the system to forensic testing – adding that they are working with the victims, those who have the virus, and the witnesses, those who have come into contact with someone who has the virus.
She said: "The number of coronavirus cases in the West Midlands now stands at 16,769 , tragically 4,271 people in the West Midlands have now died – our heartfelt condolences go out to the families, friends and communities who have lost loved ones.
“On Wednesday evening, Matt Hancock announced the NHS Test and Trace service of which Public Health England (PHE) is a part of. It is being put in place of national lockdown which can be replaced by individual isolation and local action when there are outbreaks.
“We have 25,000 dedicated contact tracing staff who will work with PHE to trace the contacts of people who test positive for Covid-19 – that service has the capacity to trace up to 10,000 people who test positive every day.
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“The new service will help us control the virus and allow the Government to safely lift the lockdown nationally. However, it will only work if we the public support it by providing details of our contact and if we self isolate when asked to do so.
“I have to stress that contact tracing is an addition to social distancing and frequent hand washing – those remain the biggest control measures we have. It is critical everyone continues to follow the rules around social distancing, obviously they are changing over time, but to follow those rules.
“Contact tracing has been used for as long as people like me, public health doctors like have been practicing – it is Public Health England’s bread and butter, along with local authority colleagues. It is something we have never stopped doing and something we do on a daily basis. The cases that will come through to us is our daily work, but scaled up many times over.
“In any given week, in ordinary times, where we might use contact tracing could be about managing measles in schools or TB in factories. Our experts have considerable experience in using contact tracing to prevent and contain outbreaks to protect the West Midlands public.
“When we use contact tracing we work as a team with the relevant director of public health, local councils, local NHS partners who bring their leadership, expertises and executive decision making to identify and prevent spread in communities and health care settings. In this instance, that is exactly what we will do together in a rather more scaled up way.
“This is forensic work if you will, to seek out the victims and witnesses. The victims will have the infection and we need to provide advice to them, and the witnesses, the contacts, might have been exposed. We will use the information to build up a detailed list of who we need to get in contact with to stop the transmission of the disease."
She added: “The virus needs a vehicle to live in and reproduce which is you and me, which is why social distancing, isolating when you are asked to do so and practicing good hygiene, and us doing what I have explained will deprive the virus of the opportunity to spread to enable this period of national lockdown to be replaced by local self isolation or local action to keep West Midlands and the country working.”
