New data showing how Wales' test and trace system is working during the country's fire-break lockdown.
When Mark Drakeford announced Wales would enter a two-week fire-break lockdown starting on October 23 he said the restrictions were being brought in place as a " short, sharp, shock to turn back the clock, slow down the virus, and give us more time. "
The First Minister stressed that this time period would be essential to the test and trace system in Wales, allowing for more staff to be recruited and for contact tracers to "catch up on the huge volume of contacts hat have to be contacted and traced".
We take a look at how Wales' test and trace system worked in the first week of the fire-break lockdown.
The stats
When people were contacted
Who does the figures include?
The term "eligible for a follow-up" applies to most coronavirus cases in Wales. The cases not included in these figures are those that have happened in places like hospitals, care homes and prisons.
So what do the testing figures mean?
This means 1,200 more people were tested for coronavirus in the first week after lockdown than compared with the seven day period before. However, despite a sharp increase in testing, the contact rate only increased by 1%.
How long did it take tracers to contact people with a positive result?
The worrying revelation about this new data, which was published today, shows that in the week between October 25 and October 31, it took tracers longer to reach positive cases than the week before.
Of those successfully contacted by tracers during that week, only 45% of people were successfully reached within 24 hours of being referred to the contact tracing system.
However, 77% of cases were reached within 48 hours of their case being referred to tracers.
There is no data available for how long it took tracers to contact the remaining 23% of people.
By comparison, the week prior to this, between October 18 and 24, 65% of people successfully contacted were reached within 24 hours and a further 86% were reached within 48 hours.
This is a fall of 20% in the amount of people being reached within the first 24 hours of their case being referred to tracers.
These figures are important as the sooner a tracer is able to make contact with a positive case, the sooner they are able to identify possible close contacts who also need to be contacted in order to assess their risk.
How many close contacts of those who tested positive for the virus were successfully reached by tracers?
Between the week October 25 and 31, contact tracers identified 18,664 people as close contacts of those who had tested positive for coronavirus and were eligible for a follow-up.
Out of that figure, 15,369 were successfully contacted and advised accordingly. That is 82% of close contacts successfully reached.
However, that means 3,295 people who were identified as close contacts of someone with a positive test result were not contacted and advised according.
In the week leading up to the fire-break lockdown (October 18-24), 16,288 close contacts of positive cases were identified by contact tracers.
Out of that number, 14,303 were successfully contacted and advised accordingly. That is 88% of contacts.
The fire-break week saw the amount of close-contacts reached by contact tracers fall by 6% on the week before.
What about close contacts?
As well as positive cases are reached as soon as possible, it is just as important that close-contacts of positive cases are also reached as soon as possible.
For the fire-break week October 25-31, 75% of close contacts that were reached were contacted in 24 hours of being identified by the person who had tested positive.
A further 87% of close-contacts were reached within 48 hours of being identified by a person who had tested positive for the virus.
The week before, 81% of close contacts were successfully reached within 24 hours of being identified by a person with coronavirus, and 92% were reached within 48 hours.
