has admitted in the House of Commons today (Tuesday)
that he doesn’t know how many people could be spreading Covid-19
unknowingly as a result of the Government’s Excel blunder.
At Health and Social Care Questions this morning, Jonathan
Ashworth, Labour’s Shadow Health and Social Care Secretary asked:
“Given the ONS has today said that deaths have increased for
three weeks in a row, given the rising prevalence of the virus,
can he understand the upset and anger over the Excel spreadsheet
blunder? And can he tell us today what he couldn’t tell us
yesterday: of the 48,000 contacts - not the index cases, the
contacts - how many have been traced, and how many are now
isolating?”
In response, replied:
“We have obviously been continuing to contact both the
index cases and the contacts - of course the total number of
contacts depends on how many contacts each index case has so that
information will of course be made available in the normal way
when it has been completed but you can’t know in advance how many
contacts there are because you have to do the interviews with the
index cases first.”
Commenting on the admission, said:
“Because of this Government’s incompetence, there are
potentially thousands of people who have been exposed to the
virus who could be wandering around not knowing they were exposed
and could be infecting people, and the Health Secretary couldn’t
even tell us if they’ve been traced. Ministers urgently need to
get a grip of their test and trace service.”
