Latest figures have been released on the success of Reading's own test and trace system during its first week.

The local operation, which attempts to get in touch with people the national system cannot, managed to reach 60 per cent of contacts in the first week.

The local test and trace, launched by Reading Borough Council on Friday, October 23, has boosted the success rate of the overall system to 80 per cent.

It means that more people have been contacted to inform them they have been in contact with someone who has tested positive for coronavirus and they must self isolate.

The aim is to slow down the spread of Covid-19 in Reading. The town's infection rate is now sitting at 136.6 per 100,000 people in the seven days up to October 31, after 221 new cases, this has increased from a rate of 118.7 in the week to October 24.

The whole country has been placed under lockdown from Thursday, November 5 to try and reduce the spread of the virus.

Reading test and trace latest numbers of people contacted

In the last week, the NHS Test and Trace system successfully traced 64.6 per cent of cases in Reading. The remaining more difficult to reach cases are then passed to the local authority to attempt to trace.

The local team were given 69 people to contact in the first week (October 23-30) – 41 were successfully contacted, with advice given and contact info received.

Four people were referred to the NHS, while another four were too unwell to take part.

A further two people did not want to engage with the service and 18 could not be contacted.

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Isabel Edgar Briancon, who heads up the service and is assistant director for customer service at the council, said: “We are very much supplementing the government.

“The government has failed to contact people who have tested positive and we are stepping in.

“We are getting the people who are really difficult to engage coming through to us. These are people who would not have had any contact otherwise.”

She said the local contact tracing team is also working with the University of Reading to do more targeted tracing.

The team has no targets from the government and is purely supplementing the national targets.

The four contacts which were sent back to the NHS were because the data was old and the people had been tested many weeks before.

The local contact tracing telephone service is running seven days a week:

  • Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm
  • Saturday to Sunday, from 10am to 1pm

Where people cannot be reached, the public health team will go to their home address to knock on the door and post a letter and information leaflet if no one answers.

The national and local test and trace systems do not deal with cases linked to settings such as hospitals, schools and prisons, which are handled by local health protection teams.