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U.K. Races to Fix Struggling Covid Test System as Cases Rise

Boris Johnson’s government acknowledged its Covid-19 testing program is coming under strain as a lack of availability.

U.K. Races to Fix Struggling Covid Test System as Cases Rise
A Ready paramedic performs a Covid-19 swab test on a patient during a home visit in the Bronx borough of New York, U.S. (Photographer: Angus Mordant/Bloomberg)

Boris Johnson’s government acknowledged its Covid-19 testing program is coming under strain as a lack of availability -- even in the country’s biggest virus hotspots -- undermined efforts to contain the pandemic.

“There are operational challenges,” Health Secretary Matt Hancock told the House of Commons on Tuesday, in response to repeated questions from MPs about why people in their districts are unable to be tested. “We have seen a sharp rise in the numbers coming forward for a test,” he said, before telling lawmakers “we will be able to solve this problem in a matter of weeks.”

Despite the prime minister’s pledge to build a “world-beating” testing system, the U.K. is struggling to cope with growing demand after Covid-19 cases surged in recent weeks. Fixing the crisis is an urgent economic and social challenge as rapid testing is essential for getting people back to work and keeping their children in classrooms.

Figures from the Department for Education published Tuesday showed that 12% of pupils in England weren’t in school last week.

The testing shortage is also a huge political headache for Johnson reminiscent of the early days of the pandemic. Then his government was criticized for responding too slowly to the emerging health threat and a lack of capacity forced the halt of community testing -- a decision officials have said contributed to the virus’s rapid spread.

Now, heading into the fall and winter months when medical experts say the U.K. is most at risk of a new spike in infections, the same constraints are re-emerging despite a significant boost in testing capacity over the summer.

Prioritizing

Hancock told MPs the government wants to prioritize to ensure doctors, nurses and social care workers can be tested. “I don’t rule out further steps to ensure our tests are used to those priorities,” he said.

“They are definitely behind the curve in terms of getting the necessary tests for what we need today,” John Bell, a professor of medicine at Oxford University who advises the government, told BBC radio on Tuesday. Ministers “underestimated” demand for tests caused by schools reopening, he said.

“This will get worse because of course we haven’t hit winter yet -- we haven’t all started to sniffle, get fevers, get colds, and that’s going to add additional confusion to the problem,” Bell said. “The demand will go up.”

On Monday, LBC Radio reported there were no walk-in, drive-through or home tests accessible online in the worst-affected virus areas, including Bolton, Salford, Blackburn and Manchester.

‘Unacceptable’

Even House of Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle, who traditionally stays above the political fray, weighed in on Tuesday, calling the shortage of Covid-19 tests “completely unacceptable.”

The government has ramped up testing significantly since April, with official capacity reaching 375,000 per day as of last week -- a number Johnson has said he wants to reach 500,000 by the end of October. But the number of tests actually carried out consistently falls well below official capacity -- in part due to a shortage of laboratory staff.

NHS Providers chief executive Chris Hopson called on the government to be “honest and open” about the cause of problems in the testing system, and said England’s health service is already being affected by the number of staff self-isolating because they can’t get a test.

Lack of Access

“We have now got cases where patients who should be being treated, we can’t treat them because they can’t get access to a test,” he told the BBC.

Ministers have been trying to balance the need to boost the economy with the health risks attached to workers using public transport and sitting in offices. The government introduced a ‘rule of six’ limit on social gatherings in England this week to try to reduce transmissions.

Some members of Johnson’s own Conservative Party have criticized the measure, calling it arbitrary and too strict because it can effectively limit contact between, for example, grandparents and grandchildren if the families exceed the number. But Home Secretary Priti Patel told the BBC she would even report her neighbors if she saw them breaching the restriction.

“Anybody would want to take responsibility and ensure we’re not spreading this awful disease,” she said. “The rule of six is about making sure that people are being conscientious and not putting other people’s health at risk.”

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.