Test and trace in Southwark was under ‘extreme capacity pressures’ in early January as the Kent variant of Covid-19 caused an exponential rise in cases.
According to new data published by Southwark Council’s health and wellbeing committee, between January 5 and January 19, just 225 people were successfully reached by local authority contact tracers out of a total of 1,286.
More than 300 were then redirected to the national Test and Trace due to limited capacity locally.
In a sign of the ongoing difficulties with administering the programme, local handlers found that 560 people could not be reached either due to ignoring calls, refusal to cooperate, or not enough information being handed over to enable them to make contact.
In October Southwark became one of only four local authorities at that time to have rolled out its own version of Test and Trace to fill gaps left by the central government’s scheme.
Weeks later, in November, we reported that Southwark’s callers were reaching over 85 per cent of people compared with the 60 per cent achieved by the national scheme.
The News understands that the service is currently on track to achieve the target 80 per cent plus figure overall this month after the extremely busy start to the year.
The Southwark Council report notes: “The high levels of transmission observed in early January 2021 has given rise to extreme capacity pressures on local contact tracing with as many as 200 cases referred to the local team on some days.
“With transmission numbers down over the last week, the volume of referrals is approaching more sustainable levels but capacity remains stretched.”
Home tracing visits which had been implemented in December had also been temporarily stopped due to safety concerns over the increased transmission rates of variants of the virus.
During a similar period – between January 12 and 18, outbreaks were largely concentrated in care homes and workplaces across Southwark.
According to council data, 32 open outbreaks were reported within that period – sixteen of which were in care homes, three in early years settings, and eight in workplaces.
An outbreak is defined as two or more confirmed cases of COVID-19 at a given site which are linked.
Encouragingly, the number of new infections is continuing to fall in the borough. In the week up to January 24, the seven-day incidence rate dropped by 37 per cent to 391 per 100,000 people.