LONDON (Reuters) – Britain plans to introduce regular, population-based testing for COVID-19 so that it can suppress the spread of the virus and reduce restrictions that have plagued its economy without triggering a second wave in any of the least affected countries in the world.
A warning sign with hygiene and safety guidelines is pictured in an almost empty street, as restrictions in the city have begun to diminish amid the outbreak of coronavirus (COVID-19) disease, in Leicester, UK , August 19, 2020. REUTERS / Paul Childs
Health Minister Matt Hancock said the government was trying a variety of new, faster tests that could yield immediate results and hopes to roll them out by the end of the year.
“The mass tests, population tests, where we make it the norm that people test regularly, allowing us to allow some of the freedoms back, is now an enormous project in government,” he told BBC Radio.
The government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been criticized by political opponents and health experts for being too slow to go into lockdown and roll out tests to know how far the virus had spread.
Britain now has the highest death toll in Europe, at more than 50,000, and the deepest economic contraction of any major advanced economy.
Hancock said the country’s research laboratories at Porton Down are testing new detectors that do not have to go to a laboratory so they can deliver results quickly.
“There are new technologies on course that we are now buying and testing,” he said. “We will definitely clean it up over the rest of this year.”
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has promised massive tests there after her first local COVID-19 case in 102 days.
Widespread testing is seen as one way to reopen the economy, which suffered a record 20% in the second quarter and is expected to see unemployment rise as the government ends its huge job subsidy program in October.
“Hard times are here,” Finance Minister Rishi Sunak said last week.
DISPOSAL
New approaches to tests that do not need to be processed in laboratories could also encourage a re-evaluation of Britain’s policy to quarantine travelers from countries such as Spain and France.
London Heathrow Airport said on Wednesday that a test site was ready to open if Britain approved a rule change and two tests, one on arrival and one a few days later, could cut the quarantine period for passengers of the current two weeks.
“The movement to increase mass testing and use new techniques will support efforts to encourage people to resume aspects of daily life, about which they may be well nervous,” said Sian Griffiths, Emeritus Professor of Public Health at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
“Receiving this information within a faster time period makes it possible to give more consideration to testing in situations such as airports.”
For today’s lab-based tests, the UK government says it currently has a daily test capacity of more than 335,000, although in August between 150,000 and 190,000 tests were actually processed on any given day.
By comparison, the German test laboratory association said on Tuesday that the country had used about 750,000 of a weekly capacity of one million tests and thus used a higher portion of its capacity.
Falls in Britain have started to rise again, with more than 1,000 positive results in eight of the last 10 days.
The government said on Wednesday it would expand a test study conducted by the Office for National Statistics from 28,000 people now to 150,000 by October and eventually to 400,000 to help spot a better national picture of the pandemic and spot local outbreaks .
Additional report by Sarah Young in London and Ludwig Burger in Frankfurt; Edited by Michael Holden and Catherine Evans
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