Hancock says Covid tests are now having to be prioritised, with further restrictions possible

[JS87]

According to the Guardian, Matt Hancock is speaking in HoC and said:
We’ve seen a sharp rise in people coming forward for a test, including those who are not eligible.

And throughout this pandemic we have prioritised testing according to need. Over the summer, when demand was low, we were able to meet all requirements for testing, whether priorities or not.

But as demand has risen, so we are having to prioritise once again. And I do not shirk from decisions about prioritisation. They are not always comfortable, but they are important.

The top priority is, and always has been, acute clinical care.

The next priority is social care, where we’re now sending over 100,000 tests a day because we’ve all seen the risks this virus poses in care homes.

We’ll set out in full an updated prioritisation and I do not rule out further steps to make sure tests are used according to those priorities. It is a choice that we must make.

@WhoWants2Know
2 of my DC are back at school. 1 started with sniffles last week. Was concerned about my other over the weekend as he had a cough - which I knew was related to the cold but knew he wouldn't be able to go to school with it. Couldn't get a test at all. He was absolutely fine (apart from runny nose) on Monday and his school said he was fine to go, so I've sent him but it was against my better judgement as I'd hate any one else to go through what I went through on the weekend - stress wise at least!

My youngest & myself? Horrible colds - no coughs / temperatures though.

So yes, lots of bugs doing the rounds at the moment

It's an absolutely shocking state of affairs. Of course demand would go up as the schools and universities go back. What are they thinking?! if demand is going up then the amount of tests and the capacity for testing must be increased, not the other way around.

The government are so stringent on these three symptoms which don't tally up to the latest data anyway. What the hell are they playing at...

[quote ducklingyellowowl]@MJMG2015 yes actually I do!

Have a look into the way the Tories have prioritised private companies over the NHS, have put testing and track/trace in the hands of these companies instead of localised labs and local community health services. This is a specifically conservative agenda to privatise and monetise public services.

We have the worst record in Europe during the first wave as we know - much of this was due to conservative reluctance to put people’s health over the economy.

To have a Tory government - and a Boris Johnson government at that - in charge at a time of national crisis is a monumental disaster for us all. [/quote]
Johnson is a bad fit no doubt but Sunak and Hancock are showing up and doing their bit, even if the latter is worried about going back to the care homes crisis. Understandably in a way, but we need to look at testing priorities.

It’s never been economy over health. The economy has taken a battering.

Zoe App Data: The top five symptoms in school aged children who test positive for COVID are; fatigue (55%) headache (53%), fever (49%), sore throat (38%) and loss of appetite (35%). This was different compared to the App’s data on adults; fatigue (87%), headache (72%), loss of smell (60%), persistent cough (54%) and sore throat (49%). In addition to this, research from the app has also found that one in six (15%) children who test positive for COVID also present with an unusual skin rash.

When you apply for a test on the website, it asks if you have any of the three symptoms. Surely if you say “no” you can’t get a test? So how would MH know if people didn’t need them. Symptoms = get tested. Or did I miss some kind of amendment to that?

If you/ your child has a temperature or cough and they get tested and it comes back negative that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have got tested.

If all tests were positive we wouldn’t need testing because you’d know it was Covid before the test.

We have just been through the stress of getting my child testing. No one is going to take up 14 days of school and work/ spend hours and days of their life refreshing a webpage every few minutes and drive miles to a test centre (if they’re lucky) and have a horrible invasive test because they feel like it.

I don't for one minute disagree it's a shit show, nor am I backing the tories in any way, but I genuinely don't think any of the other parties would have been any better.

Let's not forget he gutted the cabinet of more experienced ministers and filled it with brexiteer sycophants whilst simultaneously upending the civil service. Even during the crisis he has marginalised people who won't toe the line.

I wrote to my MP several months ago pointing out that the demand for testing would increase massively when schools went back. He wrote back personally with detailled plans about how all that was in hand. Total complacency and what I predicted has happened.
Same as PPE - not enough purchased, then rationed, then NHS staff were alleged to be wasting it.
Those responsible for making proper preparations and purchasing PPE and tests and providing testing capacity must take responsibility for not having done so (despite being warned) and not blame the end users.

@MJMG2015

This is a distinctively ‘Tory shitshow’, 100%. This government’s set up labs from scratch with no staff or equipment. It’s awarded lucrative contracts to the private sector and created brand new infrastructure, with no regulation - Serco, Deloitte, McKinsey, Lighthouse Labs etc etc. Meanwhile. NHS labs haven’t reached capacity and are being ignored.

It really is a scandal that the government has bypassed Regional Heath teams, GPs, Local Authority Public Health. And it still has the cheek to call this system ‘NHS Test and Trace’ instead of ‘Serco’ or ‘Deloitte’.

People have no clue about this because the media isn’t interrogating it enough.

The Who's Symptom List:

@walksen

I don't for one minute disagree it's a shit show, nor am I backing the tories in any way, but I genuinely don't think any of the other parties would have been any better.

Let's not forget he gutted the cabinet of more experienced ministers and filled it with brexiteer sycophants whilst simultaneously upending the civil service. Even during the crisis he has marginalised people who won't toe the line.

Have a look at my above post. Would another government have made many errors? Absolutely. Would they have exploited this pandemic as a way of awarding massive contracts to private companies and decimating public health in the process? Probably not.

@WhoWants2Know

I would like to know how they can say that people are having tests who don't need them.

How do they know? Are these people rocking up and saying they don't have symptoms? If that's the case, then why administer the test?

I can't see any sort of evidence reported to say people are being tested who don't need it-- other than Matt Hancock says so. And he says lots of things.

I'd definitely like to see the figures for this too

There was a piece on the lunchtime news interviewing people turning up at a test centre because they couldn't get tests booked online.

If I heard it right one of the people trying to get a test said his granddaughter had been sent home from school as someone in her year/group/class had tested positive. She needed a test as she lives with him and his wife who are in their 70s and he has COPD.
I accept I may have missed something or misunderstood but do not understand why a test is needed there.

Extrapolate that across the country and add in the people told by schools they need a negative test before children can return, even if parents disagree, it is no wonder we are running out of tests

Meanwhile. NHS labs haven’t reached capacity and are being ignored.

Now this I would like the media to interrogate pdq

Does anybody have any information on us testing more than the rest of Europe please? I believe Germany is well organised with tests.

@randomer Germany is well organised because GPs are gatekeepers of tests...

And with the fact that the government is trying to privatise healthcare by stealth

How so?

People despised Corbyn and Abbott ( particularly) I wonder what they would have done. I can't stand Mr. J or his breed, that hideous creature who lay down in the H of C.

Petty male egos and politics should have been put aside and the government on a war footing. Use the best brains, people with prior experience of epidemics, moving huge numbers of tests and people around, the army, fucking anybody but J actually.

If aprox 4% of the population live in care homes, and say an additional 4% work in care why are they getting access to 50% of the daily test capacity?

We are also responsible for an unnecessary test. Couldn't for the life of us get a single test for a child (coughing aprox every 15 mins) without getting g a test for the adult filling in the form, despite saying we were none symptomatic.

Our testing levels are high compared with Europe

According to Dido Harding, whose assessment of the situation might not be entirely...impartial. Since the number of tests carried out hasn't been publicly available since June 'for technical reasons', I guess we'll never know. What we do know is that not all of the swabs collected have been processed, so whatever that number is that's too shameful to be revealed, what we can say is that the true number is even fewer.

Germany is an excellent example of the right people for the job.

[quote Redolent]@MJMG2015

This is a distinctively ‘Tory shitshow’, 100%. This government’s set up labs from scratch with no staff or equipment. It’s awarded lucrative contracts to the private sector and created brand new infrastructure, with no regulation - Serco, Deloitte, McKinsey, Lighthouse Labs etc etc. Meanwhile. NHS labs haven’t reached capacity and are being ignored.

It really is a scandal that the government has bypassed Regional Heath teams, GPs, Local Authority Public Health. And it still has the cheek to call this system ‘NHS Test and Trace’ instead of ‘Serco’ or ‘Deloitte’.

People have no clue about this because the media isn’t interrogating it enough.[/quote]
This exactly. It makes me so angry that this happened and the media isn’t reporting it

@StatisticalSense This is government incompetence pure and simple. Rather than struggle to clear the backlog what they should be doing is pausing the care home testing programme for a couple of days (which would be sufficient) and then reintroducing it at about half of its current capacity. I'm retired but do some volunteering in a care home, admin not actual caring. The home as had one lot of testing over 2 months ago. If they pause the testing I wonder how long we will wait for a 2nd test?

@MarshaBradyo

It concerns me that decisions are being made on what happened, ie care homes, rather than a moving situation and new need.

100% this.

Care homes have all locked down & tightened procedures and are generally probably now at lower risk than the general population as long as their staff can be robustly tested when needed.

Whereas clearly schools and schoolchildren spreading virus is a high risk at the moment, as there's no way of stopping that without test and trace.

Stupidity.

If we are testing a lot of people who don't have symptoms, why are we doing that? And what is the scale of it?

I booked a test for DS on Saturday (who had a cough and temperature), but must have filled in the form wrong because I was sent a text for both of us to be tested, and an email just for me to be tested, even thought I had only booked it for him.

What I was surprised at what how vehemently I had to argue at the testing center that I did not need a test myself. I had to argue with 3 or 4 different people about it.

@randomer

Does anybody have any information on us testing more than the rest of Europe please? I believe Germany is well organised with tests.

I found this, but don't know how accurate it is.

www.euractiv.pl/section/bezpieczenstwo-i-obrona/news/number-of-coronavirus-tests-per-country-europe-world-daily-update/

Obviously there is a difference between tests taken, tests processed and test accuracy too. I've heard anecdotally about patients being given more than one test before they are moved within a hospital as there are issues around testing accuracy.