'Test, trace and isolate' strategy needs to be in place before coronavirus lockdown is eased

Questions to be asked on why UK stopped testing

Matt Hancock says his target of 100,000 tests a day is on course to be achieved

EVERYONE wants the lockdown to be over and life to return to as near normal as possible. The current situation is causing real problems for many people.

But more important than getting children back to school, adults back to work, opening the shops and letting people enjoy the sunshine is stopping people dying from coronavirus, bringing the infection under control and easing the fear it has created.

And although there may be some signs of encouragement in the statistics, we are still a long way from that. It is difficult to think that we will be ready to lift the lockdown at the end of the current three-week extension. The UK and Scottish governments are surely right to be cautious and try to dampen expectations.

The lockdown was never going to be the answer to Covid-19. What the lockdown does, as Professor Devi Sridhar, chair of global public health at Edinburgh University, has said, is slow the spread and buy us time while we try to catch up for a slow start in responding to the pandemic.

The ultimate aim is to develop a vaccine but also to come up with effective treatments for the virus - and scientists around the world are working flat out to achieve both of these, but it will be some time before either is available.

The answer in the meantime seems to be in testing. UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock has set a target of 100,000 tests a day by the end of the month and insists we’re on course for that despite figures suggesting otherwise.

But questions have to be asked about why the UK stopped testing more than a month ago, just as the virus was taking hold here.

Up until then, people who reported symptoms were being tested to see if they had coronavirus. If someone tested positive, the people they had been in contact with were traced and quarantined in a bid to stop the spread.

All that stopped on March 12 as part of what the government described as its four-phase “contain, delay, research and mitigate” strategy.

Testing was restricted to those who were admitted to hospital and contact tracing stopped. The numbers of cases and deaths soared and the lockdown was introduced on March 23.

England’s deputy chief medical officer Jenny Harries said at the time: “There comes a point in a pandemic where that (testing) is not an appropriate intervention.”

But the World Health Organisation’s advice has been consistent all the way through - that the right approach is to “test, test, test”. It says every suspected case should be followed up and if the result is positive contacts should be traced and told to self-isolate.

Other countries, like Germany, Singapore and South Korea never stopped testing and have much lower rates of infection and death.

If “test, trace and isolate” is to become the policy again as we move towards easing the lockdown, a lot of contact tracers are required.

And former UK Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, now chair of the Commons health committee, has argued work could start now in areas like Yorkshire and Cornwall where there have been comparatively few cases.

A “test, trace and isolate” strategy would help pinpoint where the virus is and break transmission within the community, allowing at least an easing of the lockdown.

It is probably going to be a long time before life feels normal again, but there are ways of getting there. It will require patience and the right policies.