A third of close contacts not being reached by nationally-run test and trace regime in Peterborough

This does not account for he far more successful contact tracing run by the City Council which is given cases that were not able to be contacted initially by the national caller system.

Data from the Department for Health and Social care shows 4,997 people who tested positive for Covid-19 in Peterborough were transferred to the Test and Trace service between May 28 and December 16.

That means 742 new cases were transferred in the latest seven-day period – the largest increase since the regime began.

Contact tracers ask new patients to give details for anyone they were in close contact with in the 48 hours before their symptoms started.

This led to 12,443 close contacts being identified over the period – those not managed by local health protection teams, which are dealt with through a call centre or online.

But just 66.8 per cent of those were reached, meaning 4,130 people were not contacted or did not respond.

That was up from the 62.6 per cent reached in the period to December 9, and was the lowest proportion in the East of England, where 65.1 per cent of contacts were reached on average by the national system.

Across England, 92.5 per cent of contacts not managed by local health protection teams were reached and told to self-isolate by NHS Test and Trace in the latest week to December 16.

Local health protection teams deal with cases linked to settings such as hospitals, schools and prisons.

The contact tracing rate including these cases was 92.6 per cent, down from 92.7 per cent the week before.

Around 139,000 new cases were transferred nationally in the week to December 16.