"Green shoots" of hope are beginning to appear in Essex as the number of new coronavirus cases begins to stabilise across the county. 

John Spence, Essex County Council cabinet member for health, has sent a message to Essex residents, urging "cautious optimism". 

He said: "For the first time in weeks, I am able to talk with a slight hint of cautious optimism.

"Our numbers have stabilised over the last two weeks.

"All we can say is this, we have the first green shots and if we can keep this up over the next couple of weeks we could be able to recommend to the Secretary of State that we can move to Tier 1 when lockdown ends."

He added: "So thanks for your sacrifices, thanks for the great work you're doing. Let's now keep it up and enable us to get free of this early in December." 

The cautious optimism comes as Essex’s Covid contact tracing success rate has fallen for the fifth week running amid a record number of new positive cases.

NHS Providers said the test and trace system has a long way to go to be effective, as it continues to struggle to reach much more than 60 per cent of the close contacts of people who test positive for the virus nationally.

Data from the Department for Health and Social care shows 9,036 people who tested positive for Covid-19 in Essex were transferred to the Test and Trace service between May 28 and November 4.

That means 1,633 new cases were transferred in the latest seven-day period – the largest increase since the regime began.

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 19,055 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 63.3 per cent were reached – a figure that has fallen steadily over a five-week period.

Across England, 59 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 November 4.

Saffron Cordery, deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, said: “The number of people who tested positive for COVID this week has increased by eight per cent.

“Despite this, it is worrying to see fewer close contacts identified than the previous week, and with over 124,000 not reached this week it highlights how far the system has to go to be effective.

“We remain hopeful that the number of people testing positive for COVID will reduce as national lockdown continues, however are realistic that winter is going to be extremely challenging, particularly without a world-class testing and contact tracing system.”