| Topic: | UK decides to stop community tests and only test hospital cases | |
| Posted by: | Mark Julian Raymond | |
| Date/Time: | 13/03/20 20:17:00 |
| The Guardian Newspaper Today WHO urges countries to 'track and trace' every Covid-19 case Advice comes day after UK decides to stop community tests and only test hospital cases Sarah Boseley Health editor Fri 13 Mar 2020 18.13 GMT Last modified on Fri 13 Mar 2020 18.44 GMT Countries should find and test every case of coronavirus to stop the pandemic, the World Health Organization has said a day after the UK announced that only the most seriously ill will be tested. “You can’t fight a virus if you don’t know where it is,” the WHO’s director general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said at a briefing on Friday. “Find, isolate, test and treat every case to break the chains of Covid transmission. Every case we find and treat limits the expansion of the disease.” The UK government said on Thursday that it would no longer try to “track and trace” everyone suspected of having the virus. Instead, under plans outlined by Boris Johnson and his medical and scientific advisers, testing would be limited to patients in hospital with serious breathing problems, which may be caused by coronavirus but could also be because of flu. Isolation at home would be a voluntary measure, but anyone with a persistent cough or temperature would be asked to do so. The prime minister’s briefing, which followed an emergency Cobra meeting, also marked a sudden and significant U-turn in NHS policy. Just a day earlier NHS England had announced an increase in testing in the community. A “significant expansion of coronavirus testing, with enhanced labs” would help the health service carry out 10,000 tests a day, it said. However, after the WHO declared coronavirus a pandemic, the government moved the UK from the “containment” phase into “delay”, accepting the inevitability of millions of infections. This also moved the testing strategy to one where people are no longer tested, but anyone with a temperature or a continuous cough is advised to stay home for seven days, to reduce the number of people they will infect. People with symptoms are not even advised to call NHS 111, but look at the online advice. The only time to seek medical help is if they get worse, not better. |