More than a third of close contacts of people with coronavirus are not being reached by the national test and trace system in Oxfordshire, figures reveal.

It puts the county far below the England average of above 90 per cent.

Data from the Department for Health and Social care shows 10,700 people who tested positive for Covid-19 in Oxfordshire were transferred to the Test and Trace service between May 28 and December 16.

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That means 1,243 new cases were transferred in the latest seven-day period.

Contact tracers ask new patients to give details for anyone they were in close contact with in the 48 hours before their symptoms started.

This led to 26,939 close contacts being identified over the period – those not managed by local health protection teams, which are dealt with through a call centre or online.

But just 65.2 per cent of those were reached, meaning 9,379 people were not contacted or did not respond.

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That was up from the 62.6 per cent reached in the period to December 9 but is much lower than the national average.

Across England, 92.5 per cent of contacts not managed by local health protection teams were reached and told to self-isolate by test and trace in the latest week to December 16.

Local health protection teams deal with cases linked to settings such as hospitals, schools and prisons.

Oxfordshire did set up a local test and trace system in October, with the county's Director of Public Health Ansaf Azhar, in an update at the end of November saying the local system had picked up approximately 800 contacts from the national system, with around 500 of these successfully contacted.

He added the remaining 300 were largely students at Oxford's two universities already being looked after by the institutions.

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