I'm in one of the doom postcodes, what do I do?

[MonaLisaDoesntSmile]

Sorry but I am a bit cofused- the news I read said to get tested if I live in one of the doomsday postcodes with the SA variant regardless if we have symptoms or not, but the website says not to book if no symptons? My husband is convinced someone will be coming to our house to test us or that there will be a letter?
Apologies again if it's been mentioned, but I have been trying to find intel online already and only coming across contraditory or outdated information.

The way they are treating this variant, is the way they should’ve treated the first variant this time last year. This is a proper contact tracing scheme. This was advised from the outset but ignored by the government.

@StormBaby I guess though that last year there was little to no testing capacity last year.

@TheChip thank you for answering.

Sorry to hear about your anxiety (which I have suffered from) and agoraphobia (which I haven’t). Do these predate Covid, and has it made them worse? Are you getting support?

They don’t shove a swab up your nose, they ask you to do it yourself

@picklespark Haringey website menitons one area within the postcode only, not the whole N17, so no clue if we will all get a kit or if it will be that one area?

@PuzzledObserver thank you.
Yes they predate covid. Its been well over 15 years now. Covid has made my agoraphobia a lot worse and set me back years as it has stripped me of my support system.

Glad to hear they ask you to do it yourself instead of them doing it.

Just follow the lockdown rules, strictly, they will be in touch

An genuinely intrigued as to the point of this given that only 5% of all positive tests are genomically sequenced so at best we know where 1 in 20 of the dodgy variant cases are. Read suggestions on Twitter that it’s a rehearsal for how to deal with future outbreaks- nobody seriously expects us to be able to stop the new variant in its tracks. If we can slow it down that’s good I suppose

@Frazzled2207

An genuinely intrigued as to the point of this given that only 5% of all positive tests are genomically sequenced so at best we know where 1 in 20 of the dodgy variant cases are. Read suggestions on Twitter that it’s a rehearsal for how to deal with future outbreaks- nobody seriously expects us to be able to stop the new variant in its tracks. If we can slow it down that’s good I suppose

I had the same thought about only 5% of samples being genome tested. They would need to massively up that to find all cases.

OTOH, they are saying that the vaccines still have good effectiveness against the SA strain, so anything we can do to buy some more time while the vaccine rollout continues will help.

@TheChip

@Frazzled2207

An genuinely intrigued as to the point of this given that only 5% of all positive tests are genomically sequenced so at best we know where 1 in 20 of the dodgy variant cases are. Read suggestions on Twitter that it’s a rehearsal for how to deal with future outbreaks- nobody seriously expects us to be able to stop the new variant in its tracks. If we can slow it down that’s good I suppose

In the briefing they were clear that they will be sequencing all of these tests.

I'm sure you mean well, but posting misinformation could be so unhelpful and misleading.

I’m not misleading, they may well sequence all of these new tests but up to now only 5% of all positive tests nationally are being sequenced so the 100 or so that have been found nationally are only likely a fraction. Meanwhile we have to remember that the vast majority of countries do no sequencing at all so would not even know about new variants. I do hope the government manages to slow it down- perhaps it had reason to believe that the vast amount of unknown cases of this variant are in the given list of postcodes.

@PuzzledObserver
Indeed the vaccine are still good enough for this variant and can be tweaked for booster shots next winter. In the novavax trial initial info suggests 60% efficiency but zero hospitalisations.

Also even though it is almost certainly more widespread than the existing sequencing suggests the surge testing should help indicate how well it spreads or not.
I just don’t think it’s a serious effort to eradicate just to gain more info so no panic needed.

They aren't informing people if they do have the SA variant. That seems idiotic to me.

@mootymoo

Just follow the lockdown rules, strictly, they will be in touch

I do anyways, I was just wodnering if I needed to book myself a test or wait for something to happen first really :)

The point of testing is to locate how much of the South African variant is in the areas where they have already picked up some cases

It's not about how many cases there are of 'ordinary' Covid in your region

The SA variant is more transmissible so they need people to be tested even if asymptomatic, to stop the spread nationally

Yes, well, had the local council not cancelled their planned asymptomatic testing scheme scheduled for 27th December on the 22nd, perhaps they'd have picked up a few of those cases, rather than having a few thousand testing kits currently sitting on top of people's microwave ovens.