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Britain hopes to have in place the staff and technology to run a contact tracing operation to slow the spread of coronavirus by the “middle of May”, the health secretary has said.

It is hoped that putting in place a “test, track and trace” system will help the UK ease the lockdown by quickly isolating clusters of cases, like in South Korea where bars, restaurants and shops are still open. 

The new NHSX contact tracing app will alert users if they have been in contact with others who have had a positive Covid-19 test.

Matt Hancock said it would hopefully be ready in the middle of next month.

At or before the time the app goes live, the government also hopes to recruit 18,000 staff to trace the contacts of people offline.

Both the app and contact tracers will notify people who have been unwittingly in contact with the infected to ensure they also stay indoors to stop spreading the virus.

Hancock said he wanted to make the app available “as soon as possible” and get “as many as possible” of the public to sign up to it.

He told the daily Downing Street briefing: “We hope to have the contact tracers, who will help when we find the positive tests, to find out who they have been in contact with and make sure they do the appropriate thing.

“We hope to have the contact tracers in place before or at the same time as the app goes live.

“And on the app, we’re expecting that to be ready by the middle of May.

“Both of these things together […] will help us to keep the level of new cases down once we have used social distancing measures to get those new cases down.

“That’s the best thing for health and it’s the best thing for the economy.”

The UK’s lockdown restrictions will be reviewed by the government by the end of next week.