Britain to bring in mass testing to curb spread of COVID-19

[snoop1130]

Britain to bring in mass testing to curb spread of COVID-19

By Sarah Young and Kate Holton

 

A British government public health campaign advertisement encouraging people to get tested is seen, amid the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in London, Britain, August 2, 2020. REUTERS/Toby Melville/Files

 

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain plans to bring in regular, population-wide testing for COVID-19 so it can suppress the spread of the virus and limit restrictions that have crippled one of the worst hit countries in the world.

 

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the government was trialing a range of new, faster tests that can give instant results and hoped to roll them out towards the end of the year.

 

Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government has been heavily criticised for its handling of the pandemic, with critics saying it was too slow to go into lockdown and too slow to roll out testing to know how far the virus had spread.

 

It now has the highest death toll in Europe and the deepest economic contraction of a major advanced economy.

 

"The mass testing, population testing, where we make it the norm that people get tested regularly, allowing us therefore to allow some of the freedoms back, is a huge project in government right now," Hancock told BBC Radio.

 

He said the country's research laboratories at Porton Down were trialing new saliva tests that do not need to go to a laboratory, so they can deliver faster results.

 

"There are new technologies coming on track which we are buying and testing now," he said. "We'll ramp it up certainly over the remainder of this year."

 

The government has been criticised during the pandemic for promising new developments which then take much longer to arrive, such as the arrival of protective clothing for health workers or a comprehensive track and trace system.

 

The government says it currently has a testing capacity of more than 335,000. Cases in Britain have started to rise again in recent weeks with more than 1,000 positive results on eight of the last 10 days.

 

The government also said on Wednesday it would expand a testing study being run by the Office for National Statistics from 28,000 people now to 150,000 by October and ultimately to 400,000 to help establish a better national picture of the pandemic and spot local outbreaks.

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2020-08-19

 

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[Pedrogaz]

Good idea. As Trump keeps reminding us, it has worked so well in the US.

[4737 Carlin]

17 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

have crippled one of the worst hit countries in the world.

An island with natural borders. Still, have to let people keep coming in otherwise 'racism'.

[sawadee1947]

19 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

Britain to bring in mass testing to curb spread of COVID-19

Well after Bojo killed a lot of people by telling nonsense about the pandemic and neglecting his job to prevent the virus spreading for a long time I got still my doubt he is capable to lead or at least manage that country. ????

[stevenl]

Testing, tracking and tracing.

 

Good initiative.

[dunroaming]

No doubt we will stagger along with Johnson and his bunch of inadequate chums.  The people voted him in and in great numbers, so they really have only themselves to blame.  It is going to be a hard and slow recovery I fear.  

[SunsetT]

4 hours ago, sawadee1947 said:

Well after Bojo killed a lot of people by telling nonsense about the pandemic and neglecting his job to prevent the virus spreading for a long time I got still my doubt he is capable to lead or at least manage that country. ????

I have no doubt.........that he is incapable to lead or manage the country!

Edited August 20, 2020 by SunsetT

[sawadee1947]

5 hours ago, stevenl said:

Testing, tracking and tracing.

 

Good initiative.

Only the idea is good. In reality they don't have enough tests. And those they have are inaccurate. 

See Germany. They testing in the right way from the beginning. Of course they got a scientist as leader and not a buffoon. ????

[RayC]

I'm no supporter of Johnson or the Tories, but many of the comments here amount to 'Damned if he does, damned if he doesn't'. 

 

As @stevenl says it's a good initiative.

[from the home of CC]

as the US has learned, TT&I only works when you have manageable case loads and prompt testing results. An equal an effort should have been applied to a cheap accurate timely test as it has to the creation of a vaccine,  and that lack of effort/resources caused the ball to be dropped - and has led to many unnecessary deaths..