Operation Moonshot 'like building Channel tunnel without civil engineers'

[Northerner]

The government’s £100bn Operation Moonshot mass Covid testing scheme is like “building a Channel tunnel without asking civil engineers to look at the plans”, experts have warned.

They say there is no evidence the plan will offer any benefit, the effectiveness of the tests it uses is weak, and the programme itself has been structured without input from the body responsible for advising ministers on screening strategy.

“It worries me that ministers … can wake up one morning saying let’s spend £100bn on this and not have it scrutinised – it would be like building a Channel tunnel without asking civil engineers to look at the plans,” said Dr Angela Raffle from the University of Bristol, who is also a consultant to the UK national screening programmes.

“For screening to work, you would have to do it on literally everybody every few days,” she said. “When I learned of the Moonshot proposal – this seemed to me to be the most unethical proposal for use of public funds or for screening that I’d ever seen.”

Operation Moonshot 'like building Channel tunnel without civil engineers'

Experts say there is no evidence UK’s £100bn mass Covid testing scheme will provide any benefit

www.theguardian.com

 

[SB2015]

I think when this is all reviewed there will be a few things that were ‘ not quite thought through’.
Having said that I am glad I am not having to deal with all this.

 

[Eddy Edson]

Mass testing as a way to control the virus without actually having to do anything tough seems to be an attractive fantasy for some politicians.

I think a pretty good case study will be North Dakota: a Trump-humper governor pushing the "personal responsibility" line - no compulsion, don't close businesses, God forbid you interfere with sacred US heartland high-school sport. He prided himself on the state's testing capaity, and it has now tested more than 100% of the population & is testing >1% per day.

It has just about the highest infection rate in the world at 8%+ of the pop in terms of reported cases, increasing rapidly. Hospitals are at 100% and last week the gov called on nurses to go to work even if asymptomatically infected.

Of course, with these infection rates, contact tracing just isn't happening and the "isolation" piece - the point of the whole exercise - is a joke.

Like the Swedish govt, he's now being forced to impose some limited restrictions - not churches, of course. Judging by the reaction of his consttuents, the most politically damaging thing for him may not be disease and death, but the fact that some of these restrictions do in fact limit after-school high school sports training. Parents posting pitcures of their little darlings pleading for them to be freed from the bonds of tyranny etc etc.

A gutsy move, in context.