What would happen if everyone stopped testing?

[duckme]

Just that really.
I fully understood the need for constant testing at the beginning of the pandemic. But I wonder, now that the vaccine rollout is thoroughly underway, what would happen if everyone just stopped testing.
So people who had the classic symptoms no longer tested, people no longer took lateral flow tests on a regular basis, close contacts of confirmed cases weren't encouraged to get tested, that sort of thing. People would only be tested if they were unwell enough to need medical attention.

Obviously the number of confirmed cases would drop, but since a lot of the restrictions are being eased from next week anyway, what difference will the testing make, other than to give an idea of the number of people with coronavirus at any given moment (whether they're actually unwell or not)?

I’ve wondered this too. We have never tested thousands of symptomless people for illnesses before - if you went to the doctor and said you’ve got the flu, but have no symptoms at all, the doctor would tell you you DON’T have the flu, & you wouldn’t have to worry about passing it on as you don’t have it (or not in a large enough amount to affect you & therefore most likely anyone else) I know this ISN’T the flu before someone jumps on me, but the principal is similar. Maybe thousands of us have always had the flu & never knew, but as long as few people are ill from it, does it matter?

We’d lose the opportunity to isolate people with infections and would have to track people presenting to the NHS (111 calls, GP visits, hospital presentations) for an idea of the spread/impact. We can also measure school attendance and employee absences.

We have an example of what it would look like from last spring before widespread testing.

We have never tested thousands of symptomless people for illnesses before

STD screening? Cancers (I know they aren't infectious)? We look for all kinds of things in pregnancy. Other countries do it for TB. And they test animal populations for bugs that jump.

Covid.
That's what would happen.

I've lost count of the number of tests that we have done- LFT at home times that by the 3000 pupils I'm the school times that by every family with school.kids and fir what? How many cases have they actually picked up vs if the person had just gone for a test if they had symptoms. Have we really slowed the spread with this? Because anecdotally it doesn't feel like it. The school have informed us where a bubble has burst and since home testing maybe 1....

@Oldpeoplesprinting

I’ve wondered this too. We have never tested thousands of symptomless people for illnesses before - if you went to the doctor and said you’ve got the flu, but have no symptoms at all, the doctor would tell you you DON’T have the flu, & you wouldn’t have to worry about passing it on as you don’t have it (or not in a large enough amount to affect you & therefore most likely anyone else) I know this ISN’T the flu before someone jumps on me, but the principal is similar. Maybe thousands of us have always had the flu & never knew, but as long as few people are ill from it, does it matter?

I read a study a few months back which concluded that 75% of flu infections were asymptomatic... We just never know because we don't test.

NHS wouldn't be able to forward plan

I would love people to stop testing so that cases numbers would drop and there would be no more panic or fear. This way this country wouldn't be on the red list for so many other countries.
The other benefit would be going back to normal life. But there are people out there like the scientists/ people on full pay working from home who otherwise would have to return to offices/ gps that really do not want practice and want to control their work flow without the pressure of seeing patients... the list can continue.
Unfortunately these people are keeping us in lockdown/ partial lockdown.
I have an example in my family of people not wanting to go back to normal as they would have to return to the office.
So I blame them for the situation we are still in!

The BBC would have nothing to frighten tou with, since deaths and hospitalisations are now minimal.

In my school we are supposed to be testing twice weekly but most of the staff stopped doing ages ago and I doubt many of the of the pupils every bothered -just record the test number on the system without actually doing the test.

@Oldpeoplesprinting

I’ve wondered this too. We have never tested thousands of symptomless people for illnesses before - if you went to the doctor and said you’ve got the flu, but have no symptoms at all, the doctor would tell you you DON’T have the flu, & you wouldn’t have to worry about passing it on as you don’t have it (or not in a large enough amount to affect you & therefore most likely anyone else) I know this ISN’T the flu before someone jumps on me, but the principal is similar. Maybe thousands of us have always had the flu & never knew, but as long as few people are ill from it, does it matter?

www.gov.uk/guidance/sources-of-uk-flu-data-influenza-surveillance-in-the-uk

We do however put in a lot of work into tracking how much flu there is in the UK, through a whole variety of different schemes, which includes testing.

Decision makers would have little to no data to act on so their choices would be even less accurate and relevant than they are now.

Do we really want to be in the same camp as the idiot Trump who said America only had high cases because they were testing lots and so they should stop testing so they look better?

You'd have no idea if it was covid or a cold so could be missing out on seeing people for just a cold

I think this is happening already. If people don’t “need” to provide proof of a negative test I think people have stopped doing them.

Only tested if needing medical attention? So you mean like what happened last spring?

How did that go?

Never done one

I think it would be very constraining. Certainly in my family it would make it much harder to visit vulnerable elderly relatives. Every time we had a cough or sniffle we'd have to stop because we'd never know

Never taken a test. Haven't seen the need to. Permanently work from home and have online shopping, so contact with outside world limited.

If everyone who needed to, did stop testing, research and data analysis would be severely screwed.

@AuntieMarys

Never done one

That's nice. That wasn't the question though.

....principal is similar. Maybe thousands of us have always had the flu & never knew, but as long as few people are ill from it, does it matter?'
I read a study a few months back which concluded that 75% of flu infections were asymptomatic... We just never know because we don't test.

I was just saying this to DH yesterday... thousands of elderly people die from the flu each year but catching and becoming very ill with flu as a younger health person is relatively unusual (I mean laid up in bed for a week or two, I'm sure being hospitalised with flu is even more unusual for a young person) I've maybe been ill with flu twice in 38 years. But it's not like flu is only spreading in care homes etc, it MUST be spreading through the population like Covid does. Although like you say, we're testing for that. So yes, I think that's a really good point.

The whole saga will go away!

@loulouljh

The whole saga will go away!

Yep, totally agree.

No more endless numbers for Sky and BBC News to rattle on about.

@Porcupineintherough

I think it would be very constraining. Certainly in my family it would make it much harder to visit vulnerable elderly relatives. Every time we had a cough or sniffle we'd have to stop because we'd never know

Or people would dismiss covid as 'just a cold', carry on as normal and pass a serious disease onto the vulnerable and hospitalisations and deaths would increase, and this is where we would see the difficulties for the NHS and the sadness for losing loved ones.

We wouldn't be able to identify and track variants to see the evolution of the virus and model the scenarios.

That's why positive LFTs require a PCR, so that the exact strain of the virus can be identified and investigation completed to see where the strain originated or if there is a trend in who has got it.

Infections would rise even further with knock on effect on hospitalisations.

Testing will be part of our lives for a long time to come, for good reasons.