third of people in england who tested
positive for coronavirus at the end of
may could not be contacted by the new
nhs test and trace system
baroness dido harding the woman in
charge of it says the system is
functioning
but it's not yet a goal stay at standard
service
anyone who tests positive for covid19 is
now asked to give details of people
they've spent more than 15 minutes with
less than two meters apart those people
are then contacted and told to
self-isolate for a fortnight
the new system is seen as a vital tool
to control local spikes in infection
the first nhs figures show that just
over 8
000 people who tested positive in a week
were then referred to the contact
tracing system
two thirds of them were contacted but
more than two and a half thousand people
who had tested positive
couldn't be reached tracers working for
the new service
did track down almost 32 000 people
who'd been in close contact with those
who had the virus
they spoke to 85 percent of them and
told them to self-isolate
but again a large number of names given
couldn't be reached almost 5 000.
here's our health editor hugh pim if you
test positive
nhs test and trace will contact you to
trace people you might have infected
testing and tracing is vital to prevent
future coronavirus outbreaks developing
a new system for england was launched
two weeks ago now we have some details
of how it's working
in the first week two-thirds of those
testing positive
handed over details of people they'd
recently been in contact with
save lives are you a bit concerned that
with one third of people who tested
positive for whatever reason
you couldn't get details of recent
contact
i think that the system has worked well
and to get two-thirds in the first week
of operation
it it beat my expectations and
uh then to have the vast majority 85
percent of the
contacts that were given self-isolating
that beat my expectations too
and this system gets better and better
here's how contact tracing
should work if i test positive for the
virus
i'd be contacted by officials by phone
or email
and asked who i'd met up with in recent
days
and that means meetings at less than two
meters
face to face not someone i might have
bumped into in a
shop that might include for example
friends i'd spent
time with and work colleagues i might
have been in meetings with
or a wider circle of recent contacts
all that would then be assessed by a
clinical team and those people might be
contacted
and told to self-isolate for 14 days
testing is carried out at drive-through
centers at locations visited by mobile
teams
and in hospitals and care homes home
test kits are sent out
then information on those testing
positive is sent to health officials
who find out more about the contacts
one of them is josie she's working from
home in red car
everybody that i've spoke to has been
more than happy to share the information
that we need and
at the moment i've only had people that
have had a couple of contacts or
you know a handful but i guess once um
lockdown measures ease then maybe we
will see
more contacts then the tracers have to
follow up the contacts
some who wish to remain anonymous have
told us they've had very little work to
do
it's not right that you're paid to do
nothing i think the time could be better
spent
there's mass confusion about the system
and about what to do
what advice to give and to say it's
world beating is a bit of a joke
in a similar system in scotland there's
an average of one and a half contacts
traced for each case
northern ireland were the first to be
launched in the uk and wales
also have testing and tracing programmes
the authorities in england say the
system works but it's early days
and there's more to do to reach a wider
public hugh pim
bbc news businesses across britain are
calling for the two metre social
distancing rule to be relaxed and
reduced to just
one meter to help the economy recover
and allow more schools to reopen
downing street says it's being kept
under review our business editor simon
jack looks at the difference
it could make morning coffee
at the black goo cafe in tring
hertfordshire comes with a complimentary
and compulsory temperature check good
that's good okay
great sasha leek started the cafe four
years ago and she's been surviving on
takeaways opening just three days a week
she would love to welcome her loyal
customers back inside
but can't see it happening people would
come in here
virtually sit on each other's laps you
know you the whole thrill was being able
to get a seat in here we'd have like 12
staff working
all of that has to change it's scary
because we don't know
really if we can't put people in here
um we're not going to get the revenue we
can't we're not going to survive
hi peter hi thank you so
100 yards away peter borgnell showed me
the alterations he's made
to one of his 28 pubs he has a thousand
staff
which reduces capacity presumably 950 of
them on furlough
he's convinced he is ready to reopen but
fears many others
may never if the two meter rule isn't
relaxed i would estimate
that if two meters was in place
that a huge number of pups will never
ever ever reopen
for us it would mean that we would be
able to open some
but it would be sub-economic we really
need it to get near a meter
for it to make any kind of sense now the
difference between two meters and one
meter may not sound like a lot
but for the hospitality industry in
particular it's huge
at two meters distance the venue is
operating at an estimated
thirty percent of capacity in other
words it's losing money
one meter closer and it can operate at
around seventy percent of capacity
you've got a chance of breaking even
that distance
could be the difference between survival
and going bust
and hundreds of thousands of jobs depend
on it
but what about the health implications
of relaxing the two meter rule
germany applies a one and a half meter
standard norway in sweden it's just a
meter
are we risking jobs by playing it too
safe
linda bold is a professor of public
health at edinburgh university
if you had a hundred people in a room in
terms of the the risk of infection
depending on the setting it would be
around 13 people for example who might
be infected
if you're within one meter if you go
beyond that for example to a meter and a
half it reduces a lot to around
three people actually and then if you go
over two meters it reduces again by
fifty percent
to just over one person the government's
target date for easing restrictions on
the hospitality industry is july the
fourth
but relaxing the two meter rule will be
more than the icing on the cake
without that there may be no cake at all
simon jack bbc news
there are more implications for
businesses emerging tonight
checks on goods coming into the uk from
the eu
next year could be much less rigorous
than planned
it's understood that the impact of the
coronavirus means the government may
need to take a more flexible approach
while our political correspondent chris
mason is at westminster what more can
you tell us
well brexit might have gone quiet but it
has not
gone away you'll remember that we
formally left the european union at the
end of january we are in this transition
period where technically yes
we are outside the eu but in pretty much
all practical terms we are still in and
we're in a transition period that runs
until the end of this year now the
government is likely to confirm
formally very soon that that transition
period will not be extended that's what
they've been saying repeatedly
for the last few months but a report in
the financial times tonight
saying that they will change their
approach to imports coming into the
country
immediately after the end of the
transition period at the start of next
year they will have a more flexible
pragmatic approach and a source
confirming that tonight
saying to the bbc that that is essential
given the impact of the coronavirus as
businesses
adjust to the reality after the virus
but also
to being outside of the single market
and the customs union two of those big
economic structures of the european
union
you might have thought you'd heard the
last of brexit you haven't
chris mason in westminster thank you