At what point will testing stop in the general public?

[nowbringmethathorizon]

Just wondering off the back of another thread when it'll be reasonable to stop testing anyone with symptoms? Presumably the vaccine ideally will give enough protection that if someone should catch covid they should have it mildly enough not to be hospitalised. So, hospital admissions aside, when will we no longer need to be tested do you think?

I think that might be one of the last things to tail off. Ultimately without testing we have no insight into current infection prevalence or variants.

Considering the impact and the speed at which we were caught off guard initially (and with subsequent variants) I don’t see how we can afford (literally financially) to pull back testing and symptom isolation requirements until we have some solid data to back up the impact of vaccines in real world conditions.

The point at which people stop getting tested (and isolating) is probably very different to the point at which the test and isolation regime is officially decommissioned.

The first will occur from April onwards, as people see a significant decrease in the number of deaths and start to live normal lives again.

The second will occur sometime later when the Governments realise that it is politically expedient to officially withdraw the system.

Friend is part of a huge asymptomatic screening programme about to start and expected to probably get bigger & everywhere. The general public testing has barely begun, I reckon.

Testing is here for the long haul

Not until the children are vaccinated atleast, and Boris said vaccinations never protect 100% of those who have it... Soi think testing will stay this year and next year perhaps it will lessen depending on cases and vaccine efficiency

If nobody is getting covid, or those who are have mild or no symptoms there will be nobody to test and it will just tail off. Maybe they will do the ONS random sampling or similar studies, but I dont think people will be signing up for mass testing and nobody will be getting tested if they have no symptoms.

I think maybe be the end of the year they will stop testing people.

When will people testing positive no longer need to self isolate?

Test, track and isolate will be in place well into 2022 at least- if we have a 'good' winter 2021 and it looks like there isn't going to be another spike they may scale down the mass asymptomatic testing. I think people need to get used to the fact that the testing side of things isn't going away any time soon. It's been suggested (today at press conference) that people could take rapid lateral flow tests to go to nightclubs, theatre etc...

I think that might be one of the last things to tail off. Ultimately without testing we have no insight into current infection prevalence or variants.
Exactly this. If there's one thing the UK appears to be reasonably good at, it's identifying the emergence of new variants, but you can't do that without testing.

@Cornettoninja

I think that might be one of the last things to tail off. Ultimately without testing we have no insight into current infection prevalence or variants.

Considering the impact and the speed at which we were caught off guard initially (and with subsequent variants) I don’t see how we can afford (literally financially) to pull back testing and symptom isolation requirements until we have some solid data to back up the impact of vaccines in real world conditions.

This ^ is what the science would suggest we need, because we need the vaccines to work. The biggest risk to the vaccines is a variant that renders the vaccine ineffective.

In order to avoid this leading to lockdown - we have to know what variants are around before they get uncovered when older people get admitted to hospital despite being vaccinated. If that happens we are as fucked as we were in March 2020. So we need to test in the community, so that we can do the door-to-door routine and hopefully squash any problematic variants.

The infrastructure will reduce because the vaccine and (hopefully) declining cases will mean fewer people are ill but I think postal tests and then subsequent sequencing will still happen.

@XenoBitch

When will people testing positive no longer need to self isolate?

Maybe never, like Norovirus? If cases are very low, it really wouldn't be happening much.

It is so difficult testing children though and very cruel. Plus they display symptoms more often than adults but it is generally a common childhood illness.

As long as the scientists are advising that self-isolation is needed for people who test positive, testing for symptomatic people will be needed.

The only way I can see that happening is if pretty much everyone has enough immunity (through either vaccination or infection) that Covid is only ever a mild disease.

Hopefully compulsory tests will be dropped with symptomatic people staying home and spit tests could be sold in chemists so people could buy them for extra reassurance eg if they are visiting vulnerable relatives etc.

Optional tests, optional vaccines, good hygiene and common sense should be fine if prevalence stays low. If prevalence is low, widespread testing of people who aren't displaying symptoms will be unhelpful.

Covid-19 is no longer listed as a high consequence infectious disease and hopefully if will be officially downgraded from pandemic.

www.gov.uk/guidance/high-consequence-infectious-diseases-hcid#list-of-high-consequence-infectious-diseases

Keep the masks though - I'm sure they'll be another pandemic due soon!

Optional tests, optional vaccines, good hygiene and common sense should be fine if prevalence stays low. If prevalence is low, widespread testing of people who aren't displaying symptoms will be unhelpful.

I think the variant risk is real, and this approach would remove our early warning system.