Covid-19 in Scotland: Thousands who test positive unable to be contacted
- Published
The Scottish government has been urging the public to co-operate with the Test and Protect system
Contact tracers have been unable to get in touch with 3,500 people who tested positive for coronavirus in Scotland.
Public Health Scotland said the figure, external was 6% of those who were confirmed with the virus since the end of June.
The first minister said a "small minority" of people had refused to answer their phones to contact tracers and it was not a failure of the system.
Opposition parties said it showed Test and Protect was not working as well as it should.
They also posed more questions about a "coding error" that led to the number of people who were contacted within 24 hours of testing positive being overestimated.
The Scottish Conservatives accused First Minister Nicola Sturgeon of attempting to "bury" the error in order to hide the fact that Scotland had missed World Health Organisation (WHO) contact tracing targets for eight consecutive weeks.
Ms Sturgeon responded by repeatedly insisting that the country's contact tracing system was working well and was now exceeding international standards.
The exchanges at first minister's questions came as Ms Sturgeon said a further 45 people had died after testing positive for the virus, bringing the total by that measure to 3,188.
Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard said the government needed to "get a grip" on contact tracing as he highlighted that 3,512 people who had tested positive had been unable to be contacted by test and protect staff since 22 June.
There were also 9,252 close contacts of people who had tested positive who tracers were unable to contact.
Mr Leonard also said that over that period a third of contacts were not being traced within 72 hours, which he said showed the "disconnect between the first minister's parliamentary pronouncements and what is happening out there in the real world".
Mr Leonard asked: "Is the first minister seriously telling Scotland that this shows Test and Protect is working well?
"Isn't it showing it is desperately short of resources and that the government needs to get a grip?"
The first minister repeatedly insisted the country's contact tracing system is working well
The first minister responded by agreeing that it was a concern that some people were not able to be contacted.
But she added: "It is simply and factually wrong to describe that as a failure of Test and Protect or somehow down to a lack of resources.
"Those are people who despite the best efforts of Test and Protect don't answer their phones and don't reply to the text messages.
"All of us have a personal responsibility - you cannot blame Test and Protect if people are not answering their phone to Test and Protect."
Texts and calls
The Test and Protect system uses a mix of text messages and telephone calls to get in touch with close contacts of people who have tested positive to tell them to self-isolate.
The first minister told MSPs the proportion of people contacted by phone rather than text is expected to increase as part of efforts to improve the effectiveness of the system.
She said the latest figures showed that the service had contact-traced 95.8% of Covid-19 cases within 72 hours - exceeding the World Health Organisation standard of 80%.
Ms Sturgeon added: "Test and Protect is working well, it is doing a good job and I think it is a disservice to those working in that system to suggest otherwise."
It emerged on Wednesday that Public Health Scotland had revised up the overall number of positive cases waiting more than a day to be interviewed by Test and Protect staff from 8,262 to 15,291 after a "coding error" was discovered.
Meanwhile, contact tracing cases taking more than 24 hours to complete were revised up from 17,225 to 23,828.
Public Health Scotland amended all data from the start of August but the error started to make the most difference to the figures during the eight weeks of September and October.
The Scottish Conservatives said the changes meant that the WHO contact tracing target had been missed, often by wide margins, every week from 23 August until 11 October.
The party said there was then a "sudden and unexplained improvement in the figures", with the percentage of cases reached within the WHO target leaping from 69% to 89%.
It said this leap coincided with Public Health Scotland changing their approach to instead contact people "primarily" by text rather than phone calls.
Ruth Davidson accused the first minister of attempting to bury errors in the test and protect data
Scottish Conservative group leader Ruth Davidson said it was concerning that people were not being told that Test and Protect was missing targets as the second wave of Covid-19 infections spread across the country.
She added: "People accept mistakes will be made - but they expect government to hold their hands up, not bury the figures.
"The first minister found out these numbers were wrong a week ago and she should have fronted this up. She didn't tell us that targets were missed eight weeks running - and they were missed by a mile.
"Figures now show that the situation only improved when ministers changed what constituted a 'contact' - shifting the approach to "primarily" reaching people by text message."
Ms Sturgeon said the error meant the people who tested positive at 09:00 on one day but were then contacted at 11:00 the following day were classed as being within 24 hours.
She added: "In many cases this is a difference of a very small number of hours, but that said it shouldn't have happened.
"The most important thing in terms of public confidence is that Test and Protect is working to a very high standard."
