Covid-19: Radio host buzzes over Johnson’s planned roadmap
The prime minister tomorrow sets his roadmap for the country to leave restrictions, and testing forms an important part of the government’s strategy to deal with Covid, along with vaccines and medicines. At least some schools could reopen on March 8th. It is understood that pupils will be tested twice a week. It was also alleged last week that the government intends to ask parents to test their children at home twice a week. The plans have yet to be confirmed, but in Scotland, where children will start returning from Monday, senior school pupils will receive two home tests a week.
Experts urged the government not to conduct repeated tests, describing it as ‘stupidity’ and ‘treating children like guinea pigs’.
Other scientists have questioned the broader value of mass testing, saying that the false positive results of tests could leave us in a self-sustaining purgatory.
Professor Allyson Pollock, former director of the Institute of Health and Society at the University of Newcastle, said: ‘Mass testing of asymptomatic people is not evaluated and has major ethical implications.
“Any plan to do mass tests of children in schools is shocking, because it is completely unethical because it has not been evaluated. All tests are detrimental – and there will be damage we may not know until we have done a proper evaluation.
‘Do children and parents know, for example, that they will be excluded from school with a positive test and that they will be told to isolate their parents and all other households? What are the implications for other children with whom they have contact?
‘There will inevitably be psychological damage – some children are afraid of a test and there may be a stigma after a positive test. What happens if a child refuses a second test because the first one is too painful or uncomfortable?
It is alleged that the government will ask parents to test their children at home twice a week (Image: Getty)
“If the government wants to use testing in schools, it must set up a proper trial or study with ethical approval, informed consent from parents and children.”
She added: ‘It is unethical to treat children like guinea pigs. The standards for good research practices are not met, which is very worrying as research frameworks and international code of research have been developed to protect participants and prevent harm and coercion.
‘If I’m a parent of a child going to school, I will not allow my child to be repeated unless there is good evidence that the benefits outweigh the harm and the costs. In addition, children should not be excluded if they refuse to take a test. ”
Any rapid testing is likely to be lateral flow, which is faster than the ‘gold standard’ PCR tests.
But scientists have questioned whether lateral flow testing is appropriate for the purpose.
Jon Deeks, professor of biostatistics and an expert in mass population research science at the University of Birmingham, called on the government to “urgently change course” on confidence in lateral flow testing.
Experts described repeated tests as ‘stupidity’ and treated children as ‘guinea pigs’. (Image: Getty)
He and his colleagues wrote to the BMJ saying that the tests could “cause serious damage” on a large scale due to the false results.
He said last night: “If the government goes to lateral flow tests as a measure of the rate of infection, it will be of concern as these tests are not suitable for the purpose, and applied weekly in a random way in different populations word.
“I would not take anything from the lateral flow as an indication of how we are doing – and we should definitely not use the lateral flow as evidence to track down people who have Covid, as it can be both false positive and false. produce negative results. “
He added: ‘Mass testing of any kind in children or adults is not justified as safe or worth doing. There is no evidence that justifies the use of this, and it will not get us out of these problems, nor do we do what the government wants. This is because we are testing the wrong people and because of the poor sensitivity of the tests. ”
Professor Anthony Brookes, of Leicester University, said even PCR tests gave false positive results.
He pointed out that if the mass escalation of the test continues, the number of false positive units would exceed more than 1000 per day.
Boris Johnson will set out his roadmap for the country to leave restrictions tomorrow (Image: Getty)
It was a target that the government allegedly set as the highest number of cases it would tolerate before restrictions weakened.
Prof Brookes said: ‘Recently, 350,000 lateral flow tests have been done, in addition to about 300,000 PCR tests done per day.
‘It will give you a false positive rate of about 2500 per day.
‘There are plans to scale up the lateral flow test tenfold.
‘If you multiply the test ten times as much as they plan, we would have hundreds of thousands of false positive results and a similar increase in false associated coronavirus and hospital admissions deaths.
‘I see no point in mast testing once deaths and admissions on ICUs have dropped to levels we are comfortable with every year due to other respiratory viruses.
‘By the end of this month, vaccines will mean we’re already close to this point. It makes absolutely no sense and is of course ridiculous – they might as well tell us all to wear red clown noses to end the coronavirus. This is the constant purgatory ”.
A DHSC spokesman said: “About one in three people who have coronavirus have no symptoms and can unknowingly transmit the virus. Targeted asymptomatic testing helps detect these cases and break the transmission chains.
“Lateral flow tests are effective in detecting infectious cases of coronavirus, are easy to use and give results within 30 minutes. This ensures that those who are positive can isolate them immediately – with so far more than 81,342 cases.”
The Department of Education did not respond to questions about the mass test claims.
When asked by Health Minister Helen Whately last week to comment, she did not confirm or deny the allegations, but said: “Next week, more will be said about how the return to school will work.”
She added: ‘Work is being done to see how test schools will help them come back. But more details on this will be set out next week. ”