THE UK’s £22bn test and trace service has admitted there is no way it can possibly track six cases of the Brazilian coronavirus variant.
Three cases of the variant have been reported in Scotland and a further three in England, with test and trace officials confirming there is no way they can cope with an outbreak on that scale.
Baroness Dido Harding said: “No matter how highly trained our staff are or how many of them are, they are only human. In a situation like this it’s inevitable they will fail.
“Yes, it seems like there are only six people. To the layman. But each of these people could have met another six people. That’s 36 people. How can we possibly phone that many, in a matter of days?
“Also, I defy anyone to predict that people could fly from Brazil to the UK via Paris, and there’s no way that we could enforce that a form should be completed on entering the country. That’s authoritarian.
“We will, of course, make a token attempt at this impossible task, but my advice is to steel yourselves for the rapid spread of the Brazilian virus and lockdown to continue until September.”
Harding then requested a further £18m of emergency funding to hire £10,000-a-day PR consultants to protect her from dangerous media criticism.
