Health Secretary Matt Hancock leads the UK Government’s daily coronavirus press conference. (Subscribe: https://bit.ly/C4_News_Subscribe)
Mr Hancock is joined by Jonathan Van-Tam, the Deputy Chief Medical Officer for England, and Baroness Dido Harding, chair of the coronavirus test and trace programme.
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The new NHS coronavirus test and trace programme will launch across England from tomorrow, the Government has announced.
The programme is designed to let people know if they have been in close contact with someone who later reports positive for Covid-19 and could be a key to easing up social distancing measures.
Health and Social Care Secretary Matt Hancock said: “As we move to the next stage of our fight against coronavirus, we will be able to replace national lockdowns with individual isolation and, if necessary, local action where there are outbreaks.
Boris Johnson has told MPs he is “confident” that the government will have a “world beating” system to test, track and trace people with coronavirus infection by June 1st.
He was responding to criticism from Labour’s leader Sir Keir Starmer who said the lack of effective tracing of infected people had left a “huge hole in our defences”. The Labour leader compared the UK death toll to places with intensive test and tracing such as Germany and South Korea, where deaths are far lower.
