Almost all the "contact tracers" needed to monitor coronavirus have been recruited in less than a week, Michael Gove claimed today.
The Cabinet Office minister said 17,000 people have now been recruited for the vital 'test, track and trace' programme that's due to roll out this week.
It comes despite another Cabinet minister saying on Friday that the recruitment had only "just started".
Brandon Lewis said only 1,500 people were in place as of early last week.
Yet Mr Gove claimed today: "It’s now the case that more than 17,000 people have been recruited for contact tracing so we’re on course to meet that target again."
He added: "I have to praise the work of the Health Secretary Matt Hancock.
"In the past people have seen Matt and the government set ambitious targets and said on testing 'that won’t be met' - Matt met that target."
The government claimed to have met its target of more than 100,000 tests a day by the end of April - but only by counting tests that hadn't yet been carried out. The number also slipped back below 100,000 for several days afterwards.
It's not clear how the government has managed to recruit 15,000 people in just a few working days.
The army of 'contact tracers' will be crucial to nipping any new outbreaks of coronavirus in the bud as lockdown starts being eased.
The 15,000 call handlers and 3,000 clinical experts will work alongside a new NHS app, which will tell you if you've come in close contact with Covid-19.
People will be told to stay in isolation, and/or get a test delivered to their home or a drive-through centre if they have been exposed.
Job adverts show the call handlers are being recruited by private firms and will be paid the over-25s' minimum wage of £8.72 an hour.
They will be expected to use government track and trace software on their own laptop or PC.
Downing Street insisted plans were "on course" to have 18,000 contact tracers by the end of this week.
But some scientists have argued there will need to be far more than 18,000 human contact tracers.
