By Ben Kerrigan.
The British government in the UK is to give every resident of the country access to two rapid coronavirus tests a week from Friday, under an extension of the government’s testing programme.
The lateral flow kits will be available free of charge at testing sites, pharmacies and through the post, but is to be required twice weekly, to ensure the accuracy of testing, and also confirm that a person who tested negative during the earlier part of the week, does not become positive by the latter part of the week without being aware.
Observers also say it s to keep track of the changing rates of infections and use them for re
Critics of the programme say it risks becoming a “scandalous” waste of money, but Health Secretary, Matt Hancock says the tests would help prevent outbreaks.
They say that when rates are at low levels, it makes it hard to distinguish between actual infections and so-called “false positives” – an error where the test registers a positive result incorrectly.
Yet, this is the precise reason, the British government wants to conduct the test twice.
“Mass testing is a scandalous waste of money,” said Allyson Pollock, professor of public health at Newcastle University.
“When the prevalence rate of coronavirus falls as low as it is at the moment then an increasing proportion of cases are likely to be false positives meaning that cases and contacts will self isolate unnecessarily.”
Prof Pollock said it is likely that mass testing “is going to do more harm than good. We still haven’t seen an evaluation of mass testing programmes by the government and the UK national screening committee should be asked to advise.”
The news comes as Boris Johnson is set to meet the cabinet to sign off the next stage of lockdown easing in England, which will see non-essential shops reopen and pubs and restaurants start serving outdoors from 12 April.
Later, the prime minister will hold a Downing Street briefing, where he is expected to confirm countries will be graded under a traffic light system when international leisure travel resumes.
The prime minister hailed the plan to offer everyone testing from 9 April, saying: “As we continue to make good progress on our vaccine programme and with our road map cautiously easing restrictions under way, regular rapid testing is even more important to make sure those efforts are not wasted.”.
He said fewer than one in every 1,000 lateral flow tests gave a false positive result and refused to set an “arbitrary” date for when testing would end.
Mr Argar said the tests would be paid for as part of NHS Test and Trace’s funding of £37bn over two years, with 80% of that expected to be used for testing.
Government statistics show 126,836 people have now died, up 10 in the latest 24-hour period. In total 4,359,388 people have tested positive, up 2,297. while there are 3,536 people in hospital. In total 31,523,010 people have received their first vaccination, up 97,328 in the latest 24-hour period. Updated 4 April.
The rapid tests are aimed at those without any Covid symptoms, and can be taken at home. The government introduced lateral flow testing for secondary school children and staff earlier this year, under plans to reopen classes in England by March.
In February, the scheme was extended to the families of all school and college-age children in England.
Kits were also offered to those who cannot work from home in the pandemic, so they can be tested twice a week.
Dr Susan Hopkins, Covid-19 strategic response director at Public Health England, said rapid testing might find cases that would not otherwise be discovered, helping to break chains of transmission and suppress the spread of variants or mutations of coronavirus.