DO you remember way back at the start of the pandemic when World Health Organisation head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said there hadn’t been an urgent enough escalation in testing, isolation and contact tracing, which should be the ‘backbone’ of the global response to Covid-19.

He said: “You cannot fight a fire blindfolded. And we cannot stop this pandemic if we don’t know who is infected.

“We have a simple message for all countries: Test, test, test. Test every suspected case.

“If they test positive, isolate them and find out who they have been in close contact with and test those people too.”

This speech was made on March 16, 2020, and came four days after the UK Government had decided to go down a different path, deciding to stop for Covid-19 community testing and contact tracing.

It was later revealed by Jenny Harries, England’s deputy chief medical officer, the decision was partly driven by a lack of testing capacity.

We all know what came next.

Let’s have a test and trace app, the Government said. But instead of adapting an existing app that was proven to work on Apple and Android phones, British exceptionalism took us in a different direction and we embarked on the Isle of Wight app test.

Oh what optimism we had, a world-beating app and it was all ours. This is what the Isle of Wight NHS said at the time: “Developed by NHSX, the technology arm of the health service, and a team of world-leading scientists and doctors, the app could significantly speed up contact tracing, helping reduce the chance of the virus spreading by enabling us to rapidly identify people most at risk of infection so they can take action to protect themselves, the people they care about and the NHS.”

It didn’t work.

Back to the drawing board, then, and we finally got an app based on existing technology and all the money we spent on developing our own was quietly forgotten about.

So fast forward 12 months almost to the day and in March this year, Parliament’s cross-party public accounts committee concluded there was no evidence to show that the Government’s £22 billion (yes £22 billion) test and trace programme in England had led to a reduction in coronavirus infection.

In a report which examined the rush to invest in the scheme, the spending watchdog challenged ministers to justify the ‘staggering investment of taxpayers’ money.

The programme, which has a budget that exceeds that of the Department for Transport, is run by Dido Harding, who was appointed by the health secretary, Matt Hancock, last year. At the time, the prime minister, Boris Johnson, said the country would have as ‘world-beating’ system.

According to The Guardian, ministers had justified the vast expenditure on preventing a second national lockdown, but – questioning the programme’s effectiveness – MPs who compiled the report noted that England actually ended up in a third lockdown.

Meg Hillier, the chair of the committee, said the enormous amounts spent on the scheme leaves the impression that the public purse has been used like a cashpoint.

“Despite the unimaginable resources thrown at this project, test and trace cannot point to a measurable difference to the progress of the pandemic, and the promise on which this huge expense was justified – avoiding another lockdown – has been broken, twice,” she said.

“British taxpayers cannot be treated by the Government like an ATM machine. We need to see a clear plan and costs better controlled.”

The report added: “A range of stakeholders have queried why local authorities and NHS primary care bodies were not more directly involved in testing and tracing activities at the outset, given their existing networks, experience and expertise.”

And as if money is no object, Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s Budget included an additional £15bn for test and trace, taking the total bill to more than £37bn over two years.

Which brings us right up to date. After almost a year of calls for local authorities and public health teams to be involved, guess what’s happening.

Cheshire East Council (and some other councils around the country) and NHS Test and Trace have launched a new pilot scheme to help reach individuals who have tested positive for coronavirus, sooner.

The statement says: “Known as ‘Local-0’, this joint initiative will help the council to contact positive cases faster by bringing them into the local team right from the start of the tracing journey, at the same time the case is entered into the national NHS Test and Trace system.

“Through this new approach, the council will now contact the individual directly rather than the national service and will be responsible for instructing the individual to self-isolate. Local contact tracers are also able to provide instructions and support to people, who have tested positive and for members of their households, who have to self-isolate.”

Cheshire East Council will also continue to trace the contacts of individuals who have tested positive, and their contacts, by providing support throughout the process.

A spokesman added: “The new pilot scheme will help ensure that we are able to use local knowledge and expertise to determine where people may have caught the virus, which will help identify possible local outbreaks.”

Who’d have thought it? An idea suggested right from the start of the pandemic finally cuts through to the higher echelons of Government. I hope it works and I hope councils get a fair share of the £37 billion.

As with everything this Government does, too slow when it needed to be quicker, too quick when it needed to be slower.