Test and Trace boss Dido Harding told to self-isolate by her own app
The head of the government’s troubled contact tracing programme has gone into self-isolation after being told to do so by her own app.
Dido Harding, who leads the Track and Trace scheme, must self-isolate until midnight on 26 November.
The Tory peer shared a screenshot of the notification on Twitter, joking: “Nothing like personal experience of your own products”.
But she insisted she was feeling well, adding there were “many hours of Zoom ahead”.
It comes just a week after her husband John Penrose, a Tory MP, was told to self-isolate after coming into contact with someone who had tested positive for Covid-19.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson and six Tory MPs have been forced to isolate this week following a meeting in Downing Street.
Ashfield MP Lee Anderson, who attended the meeting, developed symptoms and later tested positive for coronavirus.
Harding’s isolation comes a week after the health boss was slammed by MPs over failings in the government’s contact tracing programme.
MPs on the health and social care committee chair grilled Harding on the “three per cent” success rate of the app and accused her of being underprepared for the hearing.
England’s NHS Test and Trace scheme was introduced in May, after months of stalled progress following failed attempts to introduce a contact tracing app.
The system has cost more than £12bn and been beleaguered with hiccups since its inception six months ago. A spreadsheet error last month meant almost 16,000 positive cases were missed and added to the nation’s coronavirus tally weeks later.