MORE than 18,000 people may have to be drafted in as 'contact tracers' to help in the battle against coronavirus, health secretary Matt Hancock has said.

Mr Hancock was speaking on the 'test, track and trace' programme - through which the people who those infected with Covid-19 have had contact with are tracked down - at this afternoon's daily government press conference.

"There is no magic around the 18,000 figure, that is the initial scale that we think is necessary," he said.

"If it needs to be bigger, when we find out from the ONS (Office for National Statistics) survey that is in the field at the moment what the prevalence of the disease is - the number of new cases per day actually out there rather than that we find through positive tests - then we will adjust that figure.

"That is the initial goal but it will be up and running by the middle of the month."

The health secretary added: "Our goal is not simply to flatten the curve, it is to get the occurrence of Covid-19 infections to very low levels."

Mr Hancock also played down suggestions the government would make vaccination compulsory if and when a vaccine is developed.

"I think the extent of the public's reaction following the lockdown shows we will be able to achieve very, very high levels of vaccination without taking that step," he said.

"We are proceeding on the basis that just such a huge proportion of the population are going to take this up because of the obvious benefits to individuals and their families and their communities and indeed the whole nation, that there will be enormous demand for it as and when the science is safe to proceed."

But he cautioned that there was no guarantee that a vaccine would be found.

"We can't assume there will be a vaccine. There is no coronavirus vaccine yet for any of the existing coronaviruses and this is uncertain science," he said.