HSE: Contact tracing for a week before positive test result could cut untraceable cases in half

Dr Miriam Owens, Public Health Specialist: “We can’t do as much of this when numbers are high”. Picture: Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin

Contact tracing people for seven days prior to their positive test result has the potential to reduce the number of untraceable cases by half, the HSE has said.

A briefing on the new ‘source’ tracing which goes live from today has heard that the 20% of cases which are currently marked ‘community tracing’, with no knowledge of how they materialised, can be reduced to 10% and better using the new method.