A report has made the false claim that there are no benefits to testing COVID-19 because the disease cannot be cured.
What difference does it make? [sic] do you get a positive test result or not? Asks the report. ‘There is no cure for Covid and your doctors [sic] prescribe you anything … you just have to quarantine and let your body fight against it. ”
‘All that a positive test does is to A) cause inconvenience to the lives of the people around you, and B) increase the new statistics used to apply barriers and promote fear. STOP MASS TESTING! ”(Here).
However, a positive test result informs the person that they need to isolate and thus prevent them from transmitting the virus to other people.
This means that testing, along with contract tracking, reduces the likelihood or need for locks.
It should also be noted that at the outset of the pandemic, testing in the UK was limited to people showing a rare range of symptoms (here).
But even with limited testing, an exclusion was called as soon as the impact of the virus was seen through increasing hospital admissions and deaths.
VERDICT
Untrue. Testing COVID-19 informs someone that they need to isolate and prevent the disease from being transmitted to others. This in turn reduces the spread of the disease and the likelihood that restrictions such as lockouts will have to be applied.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here.