UK to test 100,000 people for COVID-19 to check spread

 

General view outside Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, following the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), London, Britain, April 29, 2020. REUTERS/John Sibley

 

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain plans to test a randomly chosen group of 100,000 people for COVID-19 as part of its efforts to understand infection rates better before loosening restrictions on the public, its health ministry said on Thursday.

 

The tests to see if people are currently infected with the respiratory disease, led by London's Imperial College and polling company Ipsos MORI, follow a separate testing programme announced last week by the University of Oxford and the Office for National Statistics.

 

Britain's government is due to review next week whether to relax a nationwide lockdown brought in on March 23 to slow the spread of the coronavirus, which has so far killed more than 26,000 people in Britain.

 

Improving capacity to track infection rates in different parts of Britain is seen by the health ministry as essential to ease restrictions safely.

 

Britain has suffered from limited testing capacity and Health Minister Matt Hancock promised to increase the number of tests to 100,000 a day by the end of April. On Tuesday, just over 52,000 tests were carried out.

 

The Imperial College programme will shortly contact 100,000 people across England at random and send them self-testing kits to see if they are infected.

 

A later part of the study will test the public's ability to self-administer antibody tests that show whether someone has had COVID-19 but is no longer infected, which may confer some immunity against the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

 

So far, British officials have not found an antibody test that works reliably enough to roll out on a large scale.

 

(Reporting by David Milliken; Editing by Peter Cooney)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2020-04-30

 

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‘The Imperial College programme will shortly contact 100,000 people across England at random and send them self-testing kits to see if they are infected.’

 

At last somebody who who knows what they are doing is on the job.

7 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

‘The Imperial College programme will shortly contact 100,000 people across England at random and send them self-testing kits to see if they are infected

Self-testing kits? How is anyone going to ensure those tests were taken correctly then? 

1 hour ago, welovesundaysatspace said:

Self-testing kits? How is anyone going to ensure those tests were taken correctly then? 

From the OP:

 

“A later part of the study will test the public's ability to self-administer antibody tests...”

I think they will be in for a surprise. 
 

I read the number of people that could be Positive and asymptomatic was believed to be as high as 10%. 
 

I work offshore and my company has in the past week started testing everyone before leaving and returned 3 positive cases which so far supports that figure. 

Edited April 30, 20206 yr by Kadilo

2 hours ago, Kadilo said:

I think they will be in for a surprise. 
 

I read the number of people that could be Positive and asymptomatic was believed to be as high as 10%. 
 

I work offshore and my company has in the past week started testing everyone before leaving and returned 3 positive cases which so far supports that figure. 

If they had it a month ago they should test negative by now so until they find a reliable enough antibody test I wonder if there's much if any value in this approach, especially if it takes a few weeks to complete.

Germany tests Half a Million every week. 

Results see JHU. 

Poor UK health system

14 hours ago, sawadee1947 said:

Germany tests Half a Million every week. 

Results see JHU. 

Poor UK health system

The last thing I read was that Germany doesn’t fully utilize its test capacities but has lots of underutilized test capacity (which is course doesn’t have to contradict that it’s testing half a million every week).