Sir John Bell8 Sep 2020 14:23
We cannot live in terror cut off from the world. We MUST get Britain open again, writes Professor SIR JOHN BELL, Regius Chair of Medicine at Oxford University
Beyond testing at airports, there are grounds for further optimism on population testing and our progress in developing a vaccine – both of which are crucial in enabling us to live and prosper with this virus.
Britain has one of the largest testing capacities per capita, but we still need significantly more for two distinct purposes. First, it is crucial that we are able to diagnose Covid-19 accurately in potentially sick patients, health workers, those in care homes and other vulnerable populations.
For this, the highly sensitive PCR test is the gold standard. The Government’s SAGE committee suggests that using this form of testing on 10 per cent of the population at highest risk could reduce the R number – the reproduction rate of the virus which needs to be below 1 – by a startling 0.4.
More broadly, how do we best give people the confidence to go to work, to the cinema, go shopping, travel abroad or attend school and university?
We will need tests that are easier to use but less sensitive, and designed to measure whether or not an individual carries a high viral load and is therefore likely to spread the disease to others.
Those with high levels of virus will need to isolate. Those with very low levels of virus are less likely to spread the disease and as a result pose little threat.
In my work I move between lecture halls, laboratories, and to Whitehall and Westminster.
I have never shown any Covid-19 symptoms, but because of the nature of my work, I am tested three times a week. Regular testing needs to become the norm for most of the population – and I have no doubt it will.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8707341/amp/SIR-JOHN-BELL-live-terror-cut-world-Britain-open-again.html?__twitter_impression=true
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