WHILE the UK Government seems to be appreciative that Britain’s latest culture war is distracting the public from its shambolic handling of the coronavirus pandemic, we at The National will continue to highlight international media coverage which tells the truth about Boris Johnson’s mess.

We’ve brought you stories from Canada, Australia, Ireland and further afield which hasn’t held back in its criticism of the Tory Government.

Now a New York Times article has put its focus on Boris Johnson’s “world-beating” Covid-19 contact tracing scheme – which it says is “anything but”.

The story by Benjamin Mueller and Jane Bradley takes the reader inside the troubled system – saying some contact tracers have failed to reach a single person, and have mistakenly tried to send patients in England to test sites in Northern Ireland.

READ MORE: Covid-19: New York Times article takes aim at UK Government

The article says while contact tracers in the US are paid an annual salary of 50,000 dollars, England’s contact tracing scheme sees workers, some of who are teenagers in their first jobs, paid £8.72 an hour by private firms.

The story also revealed that the secretive Serco contract for the scheme is worth £108 million.

According to the report, one government minister even threatened to stop co-ordinating with local leaders on the system if they publicly spoke out about its failings.

The World Health Organisation has stressed contact tracing must be effective before countries can open their economies. But the story says: “The system, staffed by thousands of poorly trained and low-paid contact tracers, was rushed out of the gate on May 28 before it was ready, according to interviews with more than a dozen contact tracers, public health officials and government leaders.

“At the time, the government was making a barrage of announcements while also trying to douse a scandal involving Mr Johnson’s most senior aide, who had violated lockdown orders.”

The reporters say the troubled roll-out of the scheme means public health officials are struggling to battle a virus they cant locate  and are catching wind of new outbreaks by watching the news.

Experts quoted in the story are critical of austerity and privatisation, which they say has caused a lot of the issues with the roll-out. One professor says there have been more deaths than there should have been because of the focus on building a centralised, privatised system.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said their system is already saving lives. “In the first week, tens of thousands of people have engaged with the NHS Test and Trace service.

“We are working to reach more people and making improvements to the service to do that.”

And Serco’s Gary Robinson said the company is “committed to supporting the government’s test and trace programme”, and said it was a “significant achievement” that the firm had mobilised 10,500 contract tracers in a month.