Contact tracing pilot a welcome step in coronavirus fight

Germany, Singapore and South Korea are three of the countries that have used effective contact tracing and all have had relatively low death rates so far.

In the case of Germany, death rates have been so low that parts of the country are already making tentative steps to get out of lockdown. Key shops are reopening, schools will open again from May 4 and it looks increasingly likely that the country’s professional football league, the Bundesliga, will resume next month, albeit behind closed doors, with no crowds watching.

Contact tracing has been an instrumental part in Germany getting to this stage. It involves tracking down anyone that somebody with an infection may have had contact with in the days before they became ill. It was central to the fight against Ebola in Africa for instance.

The UK government pulled away from contact tracing last month, but, as Chief Medical Officer Dr Michael McBride told the Stormont health committee yesterday, a pilot contact tracing scheme is ready to begin in Northern Ireland next week. The objective is to find those dangerous pockets of infection, isolate them, and prevent significant spreading. The pilot may be an important mechanism in allowing Northern Ireland to successfully exit lockdown and should limit new infections.

There are other positive signs that the battle with the virus is being won, with Robin Swann admitting that many NI critical care beds earmarked for the first wave of infections will not now be needed. The social-distancing measures have been painful for many but undeniably they are working.

As Arlene Foster said, it may be that parts of the UK least affected by Covid-19, including Northern Ireland, may emerge from lockdown sooner than others, all the while guarding against a possible second wave of infections.