Get the Covid 19 testing done

The covid 19 virus has now killed over 3,600 in the UK. This is more people killed in a few weeks than were killed in the Northern Ireland troubles covering three decades from the late 1960's. The only resemblance that the Covid 19 struggle bears to a war is that both have a first victim - the truth.

The covid 19 virus is not brutal, it is not devious, it is not intelligent and it is not trying to avoid being eliminated. The disease can be contained and eliminated by taking effective measures. These are social distancing and the protection of health and care workers and the emergency service workers.   We have got the social distancing but more needs to be done. Why should the health of doctors, nurses, care workers, policemen, ambulance workers and  pharmacists,  have their health put at risk for lack of equipment.

It i also essential that antibody tests should be started as soon as possible. Public health administrators claim that the tests are not accurate enough at 90% to be used diagnostically. This may or not be true but fairly accurate tests could still be of use for data collection rather than diagnosis. This is the ultimate key to a solution.

It looks as though these tests could be used anonymously to test the general population to find out the proportion of the population who have already recovered from infection. The tests could be done twice on each individual and any conflicting result could be ignored. The 90% that are accurate could then be used to assess how many have been infected and have recovered. Polling statisticians can predict election results quite accurately from low samples. If we were to test 20,000 people across the nation we would have a reasonable set of data to help plan for the recovery.

When the tests are 99% accurate they can be used diagnostically. Home testing by the public should be ruled out because of the risk of fraud and people misjudging their result. Allowing some people to go about business as usual and others to remain locked away is a recipe for disaster.

The time to start this testing is now, if the antibody tests are to be useful. There should  be no dithering and no excuses why we cannot do this. Singapore used experimental tests to help fight the virus why can we not follow their lead? They had nothing to lose if the testing could not provide the right result and everything to gain if they did. They succeeded to control the virus with testing and other measures. We need to find out if we can do the same.

It is time for clear headed thinking and effective management of the crisis. If  the heads of government and health administration cannot provide this now and produce a clear and honest plan for the future, then they should resign and make way for others who are more competent.