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"Between 31 May and 13 June, however, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported that 33 000 people tested positive for covid-19 in England.3 This suggests that potentially half of the cases are being missed by the contact tracing service"
The ONS figure of 33,000 is an estimate of how many active infections are present within the community, a figure which is extrapolated from their surveys. These 33,000 have not "tested positive", the number of positive cases is about 8,000 for the same period. The problem here is that many of those 33,000 have not been tested, not that they have not been traced.
Re: Covid-19: Local health teams trace eight times more contacts than national service
"Between 31 May and 13 June, however, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported that 33 000 people tested positive for covid-19 in England.3 This suggests that potentially half of the cases are being missed by the contact tracing service"
The ONS figure of 33,000 is an estimate of how many active infections are present within the community, a figure which is extrapolated from their surveys. These 33,000 have not "tested positive", the number of positive cases is about 8,000 for the same period. The problem here is that many of those 33,000 have not been tested, not that they have not been traced.
Competing interests: No competing interests