Britain's government faced questions over how closely people would abide by its new COVID-19 test and trace service on Thursday, as a row persisted over the prime minister's closest adviser taking a long-distance journey during lockdown.
LONDON - Britain’s government faced questions over how closely people would abide by its new COVID-19 test and trace service on Thursday, as a row persisted over the prime minister’s closest adviser taking a long-distance journey during lockdown.
The new system, in place in England from Thursday, is seen as crucial to helping ease lockdown measures. Contacts of those who test positive for COVID-19 will be asked to isolate for 14 days, even if they have no symptoms. He also said employers should pay the wages of anyone told to stay at home and isolate by the service as this was equivalent in employment law to being off sick.
Britain, which has the second highest death toll from the virus globally, abandoned a strategy of testing and tracing in March when the virus started spreading exponentially and there was insufficient capacity to test more than a fraction of those with symptoms. Britain is poised to start reopening non-essential retail shops and schools, and could possibly allow more social contact soon for millions of people who have been mostly stuck at home since March.
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