Coronavirus: Under-fire test and trace system is envy of the world, Matt Hancock claims

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. “We don’t get it when I talk to my international colleagues,” he insisted, adding: ‘They ask the question ‘how did you manage to build this capacity so fast’ and that is the truth of it.” Minutes from the Sage committee pointed to “relatively low levels of engagement” with test-and-trace, “coupled with testing delays” – after people were told to travel hundreds of miles across the country. But Mr Hancock hailed an “enormous system that is working so effectively”, telling his critics: “To argue that is at the root of this challenge, that is unfortunately to miss the big picture.” The reality was that social contact would cause transmission “until we have a vaccine or a massive, massive testing capacity that nobody yet has”, he argued. Jon Ashworth, Labour’s shadow health secretary, seized on the Sage minutes to ask: “What precise moment did the prime minister stop following the science? “Many infectious diseases never reach herd immunity, like measles and malaria and Aids and flu,” Mr Hancock said.