More than one in four close contacts of people with coronavirus are not being reached by the test and trace system in Cumbria, figures suggest.
Data from the Department for Health and Social care shows 12,484 people who tested positive for COVID-19 in Cumbria were transferred to the Test and Trace service between May 28 and December 30.
That means 1,790 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 26,173 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 73.2 per cent of those were reached, meaning 7,024 people were not contacted or did not respond.
That was up from the 70.4 per cent reached in the period to December 23, and was the highest proportion in the North West, where 64.3 per cent of contacts were reached on average.
Across England, 92.3 per cent of contacts not managed by local health protection teams were reached and told to self-isolate by NHS Test and Trace in the latest week to December 30.
Local health protection teams deal with cases linked to settings such as hospitals, schools and prisons.
The contact tracing rate including these cases was 92.3 per cent, down from 92.6 per cent the week before.
Around 270,000 new cases were transferred nationally in the week to December 30.
