UK testing policy

[Yogibear13]

I'm sure this has been discussed before, but honestly, what are the government thinking with their testing policy??

There's an article in the guardian today where a Dr talks about how he is at home in self isolation due to symptoms he has. He recently treated a woman who died of coronavirus, which he believes she caught in the hospital. He is not being tested because he can deal with his symptoms at home. None of the many drs and nurses who came into contact with this woman will be tested unless they get seriously ill. If South Korea can test anyone who so much as looks like they might have coughed at some point in the last decade, how can we not even get it together enough to test the fucking NHS staff????
I would really love someone who knows to tell me that the article is nonsense and of course NHS staff are being tested.

Then obviously there's the issue of not testing the general public. Surely it would incredibly useful to know who's had it - then when this peaks, those people can be asked to do some of the essential jobs ie supermarket staff who've had it can work so that those who haven't don't have to, people who've had it can help out vulnerable neighbours who haven't etc.

What are they thinking of?

The number of tests which the labs can actually cope with daily. And prioritising, to reduce the chance of hospices becoming widely contaminated

Perhaos they need to requisition private labs to increase capacity?

But they said they'd increased capacity to 10,000 tests a day. Surely this should include ill doctors and nurses with known exposure?

You underestimate the scale of the issue. I checked the staff number for just one major London hospital, and it's over 17,000.

10,000 is clearly a good thing, and I'm not knocking it. But it's nowhere near enough to end the need to ration.