Free PCRs only likely for a max of another 6 weeks

[RedToothBrush]

www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/11/uk-treasury-pushes-to-end-most-free-covid-testing-despite-experts-warnings

Several sources told the Guardian that Rishi Sunak’s department wants to end most PCR testing for people with Covid symptoms, possibly by the end of March. The exception would be those in hospitals, high-risk settings and for the 1.3m extremely vulnerable people who are eligible for antivirals if they contract Covid.

Under the plans, everyone else with symptoms would be either given some free lateral flow tests or no testing at all. A third option would be restricting the offer of lateral flows to symptomatic people over 50 and the clinically vulnerable. The advice for people without symptoms to take routine lateral flow tests is expected to be scrapped entirely.

and

However, the UK Health and Security Agency (UKHSA) has been urging caution within the government and has been pushing to keep existing testing arrangements in place until at least 1 April.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

You just go into work....same as you would with a cold

Wonder how this is going to affect schools. School staff are already at a raised risk. If you can get Omnicron more than once then what will happen?

What is going to happen is we are all going to get covid three or four times a year, and it is either going to be less severe, similar severity, or more severe, and we are not going to have any clue if it is more severe until we get a lot of people in hospital.

Lots of people are going to have crappy post-covid symptoms, and rates of things like diabetes are going to rise.

But school staff are most at risk. How can you run a school with teachers being off sick with Covid 4 times a year? Chaos

@TheKeatingFive

I think they were free because they ordered a shit tonne which weren’t deemed that accurate, so they shipped them out to get rid of them.

Have you a source for that?

I don’t - that’s my guess. At the time lateral flows were first available, it was much for asymptomatic cases only. Any symptoms = PCR test.

Here is something from the Parliament website here

I recall reading that their initial accuracy was low, when they did that mass testing exercise in Liverpool, but it was deemed ok for picking up otherwise unknown asymptomatic cases.

As more research has been done, it’s been found that LFTs can pick up cases which have higher viral loads. But they weren’t seen as a green light as such. I.e a negative doesn’t mean you’re free of covid.

The narrative has moved on to say don’t bother with a PCR but you should still get a PCR if you have symptoms which implies that LFTs are not infallible. However the second bit of that message has dropped.

So I think mass rollout of LFTs was a bit of a “better than nothing” decision, underpinned with having PCRs available, but we’ve slowly seeped into LFTs are enough. Which is probably ok now most people have vaccines. It wouldn’t have been before vaccines!

How can you run a school with teachers being off sick with Covid 4 times a year?

You're making several assumptions - that people catch omicron every 3 months, that they become symptomatic and that they feel so ill as to need to take time off work and stay at home/in bed!

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

But school staff are most at risk. How can you run a school with teachers being off sick with Covid 4 times a year? Chaos

How do schools currently cope with teachers catching colds probably at least 4 times a year?

I’m a teacher with asthma and was floored by covid. Now I’m likely to be exposed even more than I am already and will have no way of keeping myself or my other vulnerable family members safe. How are education staff supposed to carry on working?

How do schools currently cope with teachers catching colds probably at least 4 times a year?

It’s not a cold. In DD’s school most teachers have been off for a fortnight or longer. If isolation is now 5 days, l don’t think they are sat their twiddling their fingers at home for the other 9 days.

What a huge surprise that applications to teacher training are down nationally by a very significant amount! Who wouldn;t sign up to be most at risk of infection with zero protection!

How do schools currently cope with teachers catching colds probably at least 4 times a year? This sort of ignorance after all this time is so baffling, presumably this person went to school etc. but clearly they can not read even basic information.

labyrinthlaziness

I taught secondary for 26 years with outstanding results year on year. My A level course was acknowledged as excellent across the entire city. I left last year.

Sol went to school and managed to read.

Genius!!!

By no longer testing for Covid we can finally beat it and achieve zero Covid.

Why didn't anyone think of this before?

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow I mean here have been approximately 72,345,212 articles explaining why covid is not a cold... but still people persist in comparing it to a bloody cold!

I find the self-delusion around covid amazing. No, it isn't Ebola. But also no, it isn't a cold.

Apparently the numbers killed by colds is single figures each year. I wish covid were just a cold!

Had to end sometime as otherwise we'd be doing it forever

@dementedma

Had to end sometime as otherwise we'd be doing it forever

This is so illogical - there is quite a long gap between 'now' and 'never' so we could have maybe picked the right time.

@labyrinthlaziness

Actually there are currently seven known types of Coronavirus, Covid 19, SARS, MERS and four types under common cold.

So whilst the fatality rate may differ (34% for MERS) it would be correct to state that certain types of common cold and Covid are closely related.

[quote 1dayatatime]@labyrinthlaziness

Actually there are currently seven known types of Coronavirus, Covid 19, SARS, MERS and four types under common cold.

So whilst the fatality rate may differ (34% for MERS) it would be correct to state that certain types of common cold and Covid are closely related.[/quote]
We are clearly discussing COVID19 (what else!), this is like the sort of thing pupils used to say in my lessons when they hadn't revised the topic at hand but desperately wanted to sound clever

I think ending PCR testing so soon is a bit reckless. There is still a pandemic and new variants could come along that might cause more severe illness which we wouldn't be tracking.

I also thought new variants were more likely if there were more cases as there's more opportunity for the virus to mutate (and I'd expect the ending of isolation to cause more infections). I'm happy to be corrected on this though (indeed would feel quite relieved if my thoughts are entirely wrong)

I would like to say These threads are an eye opener but unfortunately I know as I work with lots of people who think as they are okay then everyone else is too. (Or they must have co morbidity so were going to die anyway ! No..)
You do know that Covid is a killer / v dangerous for lots of people don’t you ?

Anecdotal but my DS tested LFT a few days ago as they were meeting elderly relatives age 75 and 90. tested to be safe and had dark red very positive line and was completely asymptomatic so could easily have not tested and passed it to two very vulnerable people. She’s now isolating.

A young family member was very poorly in Nov and spent a month in hospital, another person I know spent Christmas and new year6 weeks in all in hospital.
I had Covid a few months ago and was sick for only a few days but recognise it’s not like that for others.
We need free and easy access to LFT imo so we can test when meeting the elderly or vulnerable. Charge and people will not do them.
If you had a heavy cold or flu you would not mix with a vulnerable person but we do not always know we have Covid which is why I think testing for free is still necessary.

@ScarlettSunset

I think ending PCR testing so soon is a bit reckless. There is still a pandemic and new variants could come along that might cause more severe illness which we wouldn't be tracking.

I also thought new variants were more likely if there were more cases as there's more opportunity for the virus to mutate (and I'd expect the ending of isolation to cause more infections). I'm happy to be corrected on this though (indeed would feel quite relieved if my thoughts are entirely wrong)

VoC spread so quickly across the world it will be picked up. We already track flu strain for variants and create vaccine based on that through the WHO each year.

This is so illogical - there is quite a long gap between 'now' and 'never' so we could have maybe picked the right time.

What’s your criteria in numbers for the right time?

@MarshaBradyo

This is so illogical - there is quite a long gap between 'now' and 'never' so we could have maybe picked the right time.

What’s your criteria in numbers for the right time?

I'll prob be happy enough if the CMO goes on TV and says it is an OK thing to do.

Where is Whitty???

Probably thinking f me that was hideous now you can all leave me alone..

Back to day job

@ShadowPuppets

How will this work in a childcare or education setting?

My DD was sent home from nursery on Friday as she had a cough, and she’s not allowed back into nursery until she had a negative PCR. Seems to me the only two choices after free PCRs end would be letting kids with potential COVID in, or sending every kid with a cough home (which surely just wouldn’t work - the first winter in nursery they’re coughing and sniffing constantly as they build up their immunity?)

Or nurseries will be expected to fund PCR tests (spoiler, they’re already chronically underfunded, so that’s a non-starter). Or parents will foot the bill, making nursery even more than the current 20% of our household income it counts for. And isolating the kids from deprived backgrounds who are there on free hours because of the incontrovertible evidence it improves their social and educational outcomes.

I’m far from a covid doomsayer, I reckon to most points we need to crack on at this stage, I’m just not sure how it’s going to work.

It’s going to work like every other illness? If you are ill you stay home. If not you attend nursery? A child with a mild cough but well in themselves - fine to come in. A child with a hacking constant cough- not ok and will probably be asked to be collected. As has always been the case? I really don’t understand the confusion

If you had a heavy cold or flu you would not mix with a vulnerable person but we do not always know we have Covid which is why I think testing for free is still necessary.

Well to be fair, you can have and spread flu asymptomatically.

(I know covid isn’t flu, I’m just talking about this specific comparison)

Whitty doesn't agree with the government. SAGE have made that pretty clear. Government is operating out of political desperation just now, tbh.

It may align with some people's wishes but no way is the government operating on health grounds, this is operation save big dog.