Why is the UK not testing?

[BaileysforBreakfast]

I would have thought that gathering basic data on numbers of cases etc was pretty fundamental. Other countries are regularly updating their statistics and monitoring spread etc.

I just do not understand our government's stance on this.

@BaileysforBreakfast:

Are they?

Yes, UK testing numbers are published on a daily basis.

So, as they're only testing in hospitals apparently...

According to public announcements, they are primarily testing people in hospitals who display potential CV symptoms. The word "primarily" indicates there is some community testing going on but it is limited.

@MigginsMrs money making exercise like the common cold, ever wondered why they don't have a vaccine for the common cold

Watch this table top war game "Event 201" exercise in October and you can see all the corporate companies lining up for contracts, then engage your mind!

This virus effects the nervous-system like rabies, what do we do with rabid animal's? put them down or let them die!

Herd Immunity has only ever been developed through vaccine, not through infection- we're basically human testing a theory, in the 'hope' that it works to protect us from a projected hypothetical 'second wave'- it's a complete gamble, a very dangerous one, which is why we are the only country in the world trialling it.

World scientists are pleading with us not to, to follow suit and protect life as far as possible, we think we know better....

Or BoJo and his fellow etonian chums have had a dinner party convo, deciding a 'war effort'....

The thing is people volunteering during the second world war to save lives is far different from putting 100,000's lives at risk based on what seems to be a unique UK scientific approach....

Nanslayer where have you got the idea it effects the nervous system? It is a respiratory disease. Please stay away from conspiracy theory sites.

Unless you have been locked in a dark room for the last couple of days, the government have abandoned the herd immunity route and are about to go full panic mode with lockdown.

@willdoitinaminute (your username is basically what the government are...)...

They've delayed it long enough to be as widespread as they projected- it just progressed slightly quicker-

Now they have to be seen to be doing the right thing- it's the illusion of giving a fuck this government are so well versed in..

@willdoitinaminute where have you got the theory it isn't.

Guess you are just another Chinese 50 cent Astroturfer ;)

@willdoitinaminute She made a legitimate point.

The Journal of Virology is not a conspiracy theory site
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jmv.25728

Also a preprint (not yet peer reviewed unlike journal papers)
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.22.20026500v1

@willdoitinaminute watch the Event 201 video and grow some brains cells you tool!

Look how people lapped up the herd immunity theory, which turned out to be a barbaric error, just because the government told us it was a good idea.

They were telling us that 100,000 deaths was a worst case scenario, but they were really working with 250,000 as a best case scenario. That was what they expected to get with the herd immunity experiment, if all cases needing hospital care got it. Which they wouldn't. Which was ALWAYS obvious.

We cannot trust the government to have our best interests at heart.

@willdoitinaminute this is why people are just falling down dead in some cases
cntechpost.com/2020/03/04/coronavirus-attacks-central-nervous-system/

Literally just occurred to me, why do nhs staff have to do the testing? Is taking a swab something that needs a nursing degree or doctorate?!

Employ some people on zero hours contracts who are going to lose their bloody jobs because of this. Give them suitable ppe and training.

There is no rush todo mass testing as it will put the country on the top of the leaderboard first, crashing that economy first.

Anyway I would want a Chinese Corona Test thank you very much it's most likely infected anyway.

WinterTravel interesting link, but those figures were updated on 9th March, which is quite a while ago in terms of this virus.

money making exercise like the common cold, ever wondered why they don't have a vaccine for the common cold hmm

Because they are caused by more than one virus, which can mutate, and given it doesn’t (as a whole) kill people, it’s not worth it?

Give your tinfoil hatted head a wobble.

I was also picturing Nan in a tinfoil hat, Miggins.

All testing is currently going through 12 PHE labs which is why capacity is restricted and why there is a delay in getting results. So hospital labs aren’t doing their own testing.

From what I can gather these restrictions are going to be removed and more labs can run the tests.

I heard the same argument about chickenpox

This data is a few days old but we are testing a lot more than almost every other country in the world:

www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/covid-19-testing/

It’s still not enough, I agree. We should have emergency labs on standby for this kind of thing but our government, in its wisdom, decided to scrap pandemic planning some time ago.

The test itself is not expensive and we can easily train lab technicians to do it and use university labs. It’s just not happening though. You would have to ask boris why.

Boris is having to give daily updates, increasing looking more idiotic ('why was your dad spotted at the pub yesterday...?')

If his chief medical adviser could also stop looking like he was sweating through his eyes it would also be slightly more believable...