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Putting mass Covid testing in place before financial support for those required to self-isolate is putting the cart before the horse

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All eyes are fixed on vaccines, waiting and yearning, but when immunisation arrives, testing and tracing will long remain essential to keeping the virus suppressed due to the staggered rollout of the programme or resistance to uptake. But how you test is critical. It needs to draw on a deep well of experience – not a novel approach with the potential to waste of colossal sums of public money.
Sir Muir Grey, a screening expert writing in the BMJ – alongside Mike Gill, a former regional director of public health, England – has just delivered a devastating verdict on the effectiveness of the testing programme now being trialled in Liverpool, with mega-labs opening next year. Continue reading...