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)?

@duffeldaisy

Well, no, because I would have taken the approach that Jacinda Adern took from the beginning, and NZ is doing pretty well and hasn't been through this hell. And then there'd hopefully be a large majority of the 128,000 people still alive, and over a million without long covid symptoms.

Can you tell us how you'd have achieved this whilst still keeping the population fed, given the highly integrated nature of our supply chain and the vast differences between us and NZ in respect of population size, location and food security?

We could drop testing, so that we are blind to the numbers and stick our fingers in our ears. We could drop all restrictions as cases rise and pretend that's ok too. There are mitigations that aren't restrictions - ventilation etc, but we could pretend those don't exist too.

Ah of course, us keeping flights coming in from India whilst knowing about the Delta variant was because of our 'food security'

@QwertyGirly

Ah of course, us keeping flights coming in from India whilst knowing about the Delta variant was because of our 'food security'

Hope you warmed up before that batshit level of reach. Hate for you to pull a muscle whilst inventing things.

@beentoldcomputersaysno
you do know that you are describing AS IS state? :(

@ButteringMyArse
Why is it so hard to fathom that closing the borders does not mean closing to trade? Trade can come in partially automated (eg load truck on tunnel train without driver, local driver picks it up in UK for huge transports.) Or tracking delivery drivers' movements + mandatory testing for them. Air freight could still be done.

The problem is that basically anyone can come and go as they choose. This whole amber/green designation is a joke. It's only excluding the really poor, but does nothing re:infection control.
And people en mass have demonstrated last summer that they lack responsibility and common sense. Why do we think this summer and then autumn will be any better?
Yes, we have vaccinated a lot of people, but many will have waning immunity. Many are not even considered (teens), many just won't get it because of the 5g chip or some other bollocks reason....

@ButteringMyArse
Why is it so hard to fathom that closing the borders does not mean closing to trade? Trade can come in partially automated (eg load truck on tunnel train without driver, local driver picks it up in UK for huge transports.) Or tracking delivery drivers' movements + mandatory testing for them. Air freight could still be done.

Bizarre that you'd reply to a request for explanation and analysis with 'why is it so hard to fathom'.

The poster I was replying to said she'd take an NZ type approach. Our society is vastly different, so I wanted to know how this could practically be managed. Your post, incidentally, does not explain that. You've just talked about something that you think might be able to happen, with nothing in the way of numbers or logistics. There may very well be a coherent explanation, which is why I asked, but this isn't it. I want to know whether people have actually done any sums here or are just making assumptions.

Also it’s good to have the figures - but the media sensationalises everything.
Sometimes freedom of information just leads to more noise. Because there’s so much meaningless data that anybody can twist and interpret however they like.
Information and knowledge are two different things.

I don't really see how cases add any real data tbh as cases don't mean illness or hospitalisations or deaths.

Well cases do mean hospitalisations and deaths. Even though the numbers have gone down, they're not zero, people are still being admitted to hospital and dying every day.

If you don't know how many cases there are, you don't know the relationship between numbers of people infected and serious illness, or how many hospitalisations and deaths to expect. You can't plan, or put measures in place if things are getting bad. As we've already seen, because of the time it takes between infection and serious illness, if you wait for hospitalisations and deaths to go up, you've waited too long. Case numbers are our early warning system.

Without testing, you also wouldn't know if the virus had become more or less dangerous, or more or less transmissible. You wouldn't know which parts of the country are about to experience a surge. You wouldn't know what effect the vaccines were having. You'd have no idea about anything really, which is not a good place to be.

@bumbleymummy

You really wonder how people think we coped all the other years before asymptomatic testing and genomic sequencing.

Very badly

I really don't want to return to the bad old days.

I notice that people can't really dismiss the point the testing is needed so NHS can plan - they just suggest other testing designed to give the same results, but by proxy rather than by actually testing (which is the the simplest and most reliable way, compared to the proxies such as sentinel testing, sewage analysis, number of primary care enquiries etc)

The public would know that they were being kept in ignorance, and that tends to spreads fear. They would become much more susceptible to rumour, and Internet misinformation was highlighted long before covid as one of the most serious threats to global health. We have already seen how the Internet can be used to provoke division - I commend the report which show how much of this emanates from Russia, and it gives them a whole new area to launch in to. And there would be only weaker to counter the narrative of those who do not wish us well (so more and more tedious circular threads)

And we wouldn't know if this summers massive gamble is a winner. I can see why people would want to set the conditions to be able to fudge around that

"Trade can come in partially automated (eg load truck on tunnel train without driver, local driver picks it up in UK for huge transports.) Or tracking delivery drivers' movements + mandatory testing for them. Air freight could still be done."

This. Add to that daily testing of people working on the borders/coming to them to import and export, the fact that the virus isn't around anywhere else, so you can really spend that £37 billion of taxpayers' money in finely targeted testing, tracing and supporting anyone to isolate, then it makes complete sense.

It's not just NZ, if you feel that another island nation with a need for imports/exports with similar, temperate weather is not similar enough - there are Asian countries with higher population density who are doing a lot better. We could have listened to their advice, as they have experience in stopping SARS from becoming a pandemic.

It would just take a bit of humility, a bit of taking advice and looking at best practices around the world.
The virus itself doesn't have complicated attack plans. It just jumps from one infected person who's in the vicinity and air space of another human being. That's all there is to it. So really investing in ventilation, in masks, in focusing funds on certain areas to stamp this out, we could actually do it with the political will. And we could have done it far easier at the beginning, before people started losing faith in it being beatable.

@TheSunIsStillShining I know. Deliberate.

Don’t go to Europe as they seem to be upping the testing so you can go into cafes etc

@crocidura

i think we need to be looking at death rates and hospitaliations ,rather than how many test positive

The numbers of hospitalisations and deaths don't help much if you don't know how many cases there are. If a community has 100 deaths out of 150 cases, that's very different from 100 deaths from 100,000 cases. This information is worth knowing. You wouldn't know how dangerous a particular strain is, how transmissible it is, how the vaccines are holding up, all important information if we want to get out of this.

I know what you’re saying but if they’re going to keep up this level of testing then they should be distinguishing between asymptomatic/mild/severe cases.

"I know what you’re saying but if they’re going to keep up this level of testing then they should be distinguishing between asymptomatic/mild/severe cases."

They are. You can just look at the numbers of covid cases each day, then a week later look at the hospital admissions - that'll be the severe ones from a week or so ago. Then any deaths follow on another couple of weeks from then. So the numbers in hospital now are the serious cases who caught it a couple of weeks ago - or even longer. That's why there's always a cry of 'lots of cases, but it's safe because there aren't many deaths' when it's always delayed by weeks.

We would be fighting blind, we were lambs to the slaughter when covid first arrived, and now we have a number of small tools to help us fight back especially whilst we are in the thick of it!

It would be sheer Maddness to stop testing now and before winter we just need to keep all hands on deck to get through this winter!

@duffeldaisy

"Trade can come in partially automated (eg load truck on tunnel train without driver, local driver picks it up in UK for huge transports.) Or tracking delivery drivers' movements + mandatory testing for them. Air freight could still be done."

This. Add to that daily testing of people working on the borders/coming to them to import and export, the fact that the virus isn't around anywhere else, so you can really spend that £37 billion of taxpayers' money in finely targeted testing, tracing and supporting anyone to isolate, then it makes complete sense.

It's not just NZ, if you feel that another island nation with a need for imports/exports with similar, temperate weather is not similar enough - there are Asian countries with higher population density who are doing a lot better. We could have listened to their advice, as they have experience in stopping SARS from becoming a pandemic.

It would just take a bit of humility, a bit of taking advice and looking at best practices around the world.
The virus itself doesn't have complicated attack plans. It just jumps from one infected person who's in the vicinity and air space of another human being. That's all there is to it. So really investing in ventilation, in masks, in focusing funds on certain areas to stamp this out, we could actually do it with the political will. And we could have done it far easier at the beginning, before people started losing faith in it being beatable.

Not a very detailed explanation either. You don't mention the numbers of people involved, the levels of delay your measures would involve and how this might be mitigated, the impact of the pandemic on air freight. Out of interest, do you actually know anything much about supply chains and logistics, or were you just having a punt?

@duffeldaisy

"I know what you’re saying but if they’re going to keep up this level of testing then they should be distinguishing between asymptomatic/mild/severe cases."

They are. You can just look at the numbers of covid cases each day, then a week later look at the hospital admissions - that'll be the severe ones from a week or so ago. Then any deaths follow on another couple of weeks from then. So the numbers in hospital now are the serious cases who caught it a couple of weeks ago - or even longer. That's why there's always a cry of 'lots of cases, but it's safe because there aren't many deaths' when it's always delayed by weeks.

I meant distinguishing at the point of testing so we can see the translation between the severity and hospitalisation. I think it’s important to know whether the majority of the cases are asymptomatic and don’t progress to severe illness.

I dream of the day when all tests stop.

Just those going into hospital.

We would be truly free!

@ButteringMyArse
You have valid points, but...

1. I am not a logistics expert in this country. I have worked with supply chains/logistics as a business analyst in a diff -landlocked- country, so have some knowledge, but am no expert. Never claimed to be.
2. what you are asking for: pls. go to gov and demand these kind of in-depth analysis from them. They are the ones who actually have data. They should have been the ones that have the resources/brains (hah!) to do this.
3. If you look at asian countries with similar profiles (island, not enough land to feed everyone,...) they managed. There is a lot to be learnt from them.

I don not believe that as an island we are totally powerless to shut our borders or we will starve. That is exactly the false dichotomy that we have seen with so many "arguments" this gov has been making.

Yes, it would have made life harder. Yes, it would have cost more*. But if you think about the economic fallout of this up and down we're playing surely it would have been more beneficial.

And when I say "close borders" I really don't mean do not let any freight in. What I would have liked to see:

• restricted access for non-essential purposes
• managed border crossings. Knowing exactly who came in, where they were.

*than again, sure it would be under 37bil. overall......

@ButteringMyArse
Actually, yes, I do know a bit about supply chains and logistics. I don't have to map out every detail, but it is possible, with the will and with the money spent in the right places. Other countries are doing it perfectly well at their end, and with further collaboration and more testing it would be workable. Other countries are keeping safe while not being surrounded by water.

The thing that's mainly messing up supply chains right now is Brexit.

@bumbleymummy, according to the World Health Organisation, "53 per cent of people with a strong positive, or high viral load, between December and March did not report having any symptoms compared to 47 per cent who did. It excluded patients likely to be at the start of their infection when transmission and symptoms are thought to be less likely."
(quote from The Independent article from 8th April)

but if you look up about long covid, that ends up affecting quite a lot of people who are initially asymptomatic during the infection itself (1/5), so it's not a good guide to whether someone's going to be unaffected longer term.

@DumplingsAndStew

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

How did that go?

People have very short memories...and non functioning brain cells!

Hi @thesunisshining, I wanted to know what the people on this thread who are saying we could emulate NZ think, I'm not going to get that from gov.uk. I know nobody has claimed to be an expert on this thread, that's why I asked.

I don't have to map out every detail, but it is possible, with the will and with the money spent in the right places. Other countries are doing it perfectly well at their end, and with further collaboration and more testing it would be workable.

That's true daisy, you don't have to back up your claims. You're free not to. Odd though that someone who apparently knows a lot about logistics can't do better than telling us that other countries are so that means we must automatically be able to as well. It would hardly be mapping out every detail to sketch out a few basics.

@ButteringMyArse
I simply cannot be bothered, I really can't.
If I did lay out a plan (which isn't possible as I don't have access to all governmental supply chains for everything - that's what the government does) then all you'd do is nitpick about some other point because you don't agree with the basic concept of approaching it from a 'let's not let it spread' viewpoint. And I do. Because I look at those countries and hear from friends/family and they are having completely different experiences of all this. They might be slightly more careful than usual, but in many countries with low figures, life is going on without all this chaos and illness.

@crocidura

i think we need to be looking at death rates and hospitaliations ,rather than how many test positive

The numbers of hospitalisations and deaths don't help much if you don't know how many cases there are. If a community has 100 deaths out of 150 cases, that's very different from 100 deaths from 100,000 cases. This information is worth knowing. You wouldn't know how dangerous a particular strain is, how transmissible it is, how the vaccines are holding up, all important information if we want to get out of this.

God, don't baffle them with logic!!