Express & Star comment: Test and trace might one day be a success

Smooth, efficient, and cost effective, it will at last be equal to the challenges of the scale of the twilight dregs of a disappearing global pandemic.

Dealing with Covid-19 has been a steep learning curve in which scientists and politicians have had to adapt to help us all survive as more information has come to light. The test and trace system, like more or less everything else during the pandemic when lost time meant lost lives, was brought in in a hurry.

We now have some breathing space to make an assessment of its performance. And it seems, according to the Commons Public Accounts Committee, it has had some good points in publishing a significant amount of data.

But the MPs also say there is no clear evidence that the NHS test and trace system has cut infections.

The cost of this mediocre outcome has been truly enormous. Taxpayers could end up paying £40 billion. The MPs' report says the scheme admitted in February that it still employs around 2,500 consultants, at an estimated daily rate of around £1,100, with the best paid consultancy staff on £6,624.

It has overtones of massively expensive projects of the past, like Concorde, which actually seems cheap in comparison. Given the performance of test and trace, it has been like building Concorde without wings, or a new aircraft carrier for the Royal Navy without a hull.

Even if test and trace had no structural or operational issues, it is still questionable whether it would have been as effective as was hoped, and the clue to that is levels of compliance which can be low. Or, put another way, people who feel, and probably are, perfectly healthy are not going to jump for joy to be told that because of some mysterious and unidentified contact they must now self-isolate, with all the disruption that may cause to their lives.

The questions today over the cost and performance of test and trace will be nothing compared to the questions of tomorrow when we are all expected to pay for it.