Covid-19
Understanding the facts
What was done?
In response to Covid-19, the UK government has invested enormous resources in scaling up testing capacity. Real time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was introduced first and later followed by the rapid antigen lateral flow tests offered as an alternative.
Confirmatory PCR testing was first put in place upon the introduction of rapid testing last year, but was temporarily paused in January 2021, as the prevalence of infection was high and it was highly likely that a positive LFD COVID-19 result was a true positive. This allowed us to target PCR testing for those who had clinical symptoms.
There is thankfully now a much lower prevalence of the virus across the population, which is why PCR testing is being reintroduced to confirm all positive lateral flow results
Room for Improvement
The UK had a controversial start. The health secretary, Matt Hancock set a new government target of 100,000 tests a day in the end of April 2020. However, none of the 3.5m antibody tests announced by the government on 24 March have been found to work and the government admitted the early tests had been ‘poor’. Moreover, confusion over the testing target addressed could be seen since it was not clear whether the government’s target was to get to 250,000 tests a day or 100,00 tests a day. The government is widely criticised as being vague, indecisive and confusing. Covid-19 testing was also being restricted from the ‘contain’ to the ‘delay’ phase on 23 March which meant health workers would no longer test people in their homes, only people already in hospitals. This is one reason the UK government has been accused of issuing mixed messages, over-promising and under-delivering.
However, overall, in excess of 80 million PCR tests have been conducted which means more than one for every person living in the UK; this is higher than most other European countries including France (2.1 per 1000 people) and Spain and Germany (both 1.8 per 1000). More than 85% of in-person tests now return results the next day, a stark improvement of more than 52% since December and the median distance travelled to one of over 850 test sites is now approximately 2 to 3 miles. This improvement in access and speed of turnaround has enabled more positive cases to be detected more rapidly and the government to act faster to contain outbreaks. Moreover, rapid testing in education settings and workplaces are now well established, with more than 3 million rapid COVID-19 tests conducted in schools and colleges in England since 4th January,2020. Twice-weekly testing of secondary school and college pupils are highly being encouraged on site and home testing when they are returning to face-to-face education.
In order for the government to be at the forefront of combatting the COVID-19, the government should have acted more swiftly and, going forward, must continue to support local authorities to keep doing their crucial public health work in preventing, containing, and managing outbreaks of Covid-19 and any other future pandemic. Additionally, regular testing has and will continue to play a key role in the management of infectious diseases and for this reason the government should be working to encourage the growth of a well-regulated private market for virus tests. The UK government should also continue to observe and potentially replicate other countries’ successful pandemic measures in future. For example, Taiwan’s strategy on quickly suppressing the virus in the early stage. As the Taiwan health minister, Chen Shih-chung mentioned, the West had become over-confident in its health infrastructure and should have been more ‘humble’ in the face of the pandemic rather than neglecting the outbreak in its initial stages. A more cautious and decisive approach from the outset could have prevented many deaths.
Therefore, the UK’s response to COVID-19 was not entirely poor in comparison with that of other countries but many mistakes could have been avoided and could have been improved. More investigation and scrutiny is needed with regards to the recommendations of the pandemic preparation exercise “Exercise Cygnus” in 2016 not being heeded by the government.