Dido Harding, the chair of NHS Test and Trace, has revealed she has been ordered to self-isolate, a full five days after coming into contact with someone who had tested positive.
Baroness Harding, who is also interim executive chair of the National Institute for Health Protection, said on Wednesday she was sent an alert by the NHS Covid-19 app.
“Nothing like personal experience of your own products,” she said on Twitter. “Many hours of Zoom ahead.”
Harding has been told to self-isolate for nine days. Given the isolation period is 14-days, it suggests she came into contact with someone who had tested positive for coronavirus five days ago.
Tory MP John Penrose, Harding’s husband, was also recently ordered to self-isolate by NHS Test and Trace.
No.10 revealed on Monday that Boris Johnson has tested negative for coronavirus.
But the prime minister continue his 14-day self-isolation after coming into contact with a Tory MP who had tested positive.
The latest figures showed NHS Test and Trace, run by Harding, failed to reached 124,000 “close contacts” of people with Covid-19 in a single week.
The controversial system is continuing to miss nearly 40% of those identified as having been near someone who tested positive in England, according to the latest statistics for October 29 to November 4.
Government advisers have consistently told the prime minister that an 80% contact rate is needed to make the entire service viable to break transmission of the virus and stop its spread.
Publicly-run local tracing teams have a vastly better performance than national call centres and online tracers that are outsourced to the private sector.
For cases managed by local health protection teams, 99.1% of contacts were reached and asked to self-isolate in the week to November 4.
But for cases managed either online or by call centres, 59.0% of close contacts were reached and asked to self-isolate.