Everyone in England to be offered twice-weekly Covid tests, PM to say

[Northerner]

Boris Johnson is to unveil a plan for routine, universal Covid-19 tests as a means to ease England out of lockdown, as the government faced a renewed backlash over the idea of app-based “passports” to permit people entry into crowded places and events.

Six months after Johnson unveiled plans for “Operation Moonshot”, a £100bn mass testing scheme that never delivered on its stated aim of preventing another lockdown, all people in England will be offered two Covid tests a week from Friday.

The prime minister is to announce the rollout of the lateral flow tests at a press conference on Monday afternoon, at which he will also outline a programme of trial events for mass gatherings, as well as proposals for potentially restarting foreign travel.

The testing scheme, involving kits for use at home or at test centres, workplaces and schools, is billed as a means to limit any continued community transmission of the virus, in parallel with the vaccination programme, and as a way to track outbreaks of potentially vaccine-resistant Covid variants.

Everyone in England to be offered twice-weekly Covid tests, PM to say

Boris Johnson to promise universal rollout of rapid testing scheme in bid to ease England out of lockdown

www.theguardian.com

Sounds like a massive waste of public money that could probably be much better spent elsewhere, but that wouldn't appeal to this government's predilection for headline-grabbing schemes

 

[mikeyB]

It is a waste of money. There’s a world of difference between offering tests and actually getting them done.

I’ve been fully vaccinated, that’s good enough for me to get back living my life. I wouldn’t volunteer for regular testing.

 

[Bruce Stephens]

It is a waste of money. There’s a world of difference between offering tests and actually getting them done.

By the time it actually happens, I suspect the false positive rate will roughly match the infection prevalence. Would have made vastly more sense 6 months ago. (Indeed, back in the early days of the pandemic there were models suggesting that you could control it using frequent enough tests for everyone (together with people acting on positives) even if the tests aren't that accurate.)

What the government really needs to do is spend sufficient effort on supporting people to isolate, but they're just refusing to do that. (Such that over 70% or so surveyed people say they wouldn't take a test if they had symptoms. I'm guessing they'd also not take a test if asymptomatic, though they might be willing to take the test if they can keep the result secret and perhaps ignore it.)

 

[Thebearcametoo]

There’s no point offering tests if people can’t afford to isolate. Which is exactly what the Liverpool trial showed.