It was hailed as a “world-beating” service by prime minister Boris Johnson at its launch, but three months on and contact tracers hired to work on England’s test-and-trace system say they are making only a handful of calls every month and are occupying their time with barbecues and quizzes. Agents told the Guardian they were often calling people who had already been spoken to by another contact tracer, and making calls to numbers that did not exist or that went straight through to voicemail. Run by the former TalkTalk executive Dido Harding, it involves more than 20,000 contact tracers, paid around £10 an hour, employed by private firms such as Serco. Starmer says PM has one month to fix coronavirus test-and-trace system Read moreOne contact tracer said they had made just a few calls in two months of work, two of which had been fake numbers. This figure includes calls to incorrect numbers, voicemails, or multiple calls made to the same individual.

Source: The Guardian August 05, 2020 06:00 UTC