As Croydon’s coronavirus alert status was raised to “High” yesterday, Rachel Flowers, the council’s director of public health, wrote to the borough’s 70 councillors appealing for their help in getting the correct information to residents.
In common with public health officials at local authorities across England, though, Flowers’ work to try to reduce and contain the spread in the “second spike” of the pandemic has not been helped by bungling central government and its misfiring smartphone app and poorly performing test and trace system.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Health Secretary Matt Hancock promised six months ago that they would deliver a “world-beating” test and trace system and app. Yet by September, when school pupils began to return to their classrooms after lockdown, the track and trace system was still not operating and the government’s initial app was junked after it failed in development tests.
But the contact-tracing app which was…
— to insidecroydon.com
