In a remarkable turnaround, after months of boasting of about the number of contact tracers hired, the Government last night tacitly admitted that Soviet-style targets are not the best way to achieve results. More people working on a project does not mean it is better, obviously especially if those people have nothing to do…

The government will argue, not unfairly, that it was better to have unused capacity given the time it would take to gear up if there was a major second wave. The same reason the empty Nightingale emergency hospitals are being kept on standby. Now it looks less likely that a second wave is immediately imminent they are going to wind down capacity. The tracers can always be recalled…  

It will not be a surprise that 6,000 of the Government’s 18,000 call handlers will be let go after widespread reports that the tracers were spending days on end doing nothing, or as one put it, being “paid to watch Netflix”. In total, NHS Test and Trace workers spoke to an average of just two people who tested positive for coronavirus over the last three months. The new approach will see the less ignorable plan of replacing call centre cold calls with local council-led home visits…