Oh, yeah, totally.zip accident wrote:Tests and retests. Lots of tests.
But the tests aren't there yet. And the current tests take days to be processed.
That's definitely where everyone needs to be - which is why I've been repeatedly mentioning how South Korea flattened their outbreak by going absolutely wild on "testing, testing, testing" on a scale that makes everyone else look like they're not even trying (like an order of magnitude greater than everyone else. But, as has been pointed out in various media about this, South Korea had SARS - or perhaps we should say the original SARS, as technically this coronavirus is labelled as "SARS-COVID-2" because it is also a "severe acute respiratory syndrome", which is what SARS stands for - and they learnt a lot of lessons from that to know that you need to instantly jump on mass-testing, and had the various apparatus and know-how to ramp that up super-fast, because they'd done it before and kept the systems in place) - but the simple fact is that the reality does not meet the ideal yet, and everyone is desperately trying to ramp up the scale of testing as fast as they can.
The UK government was talking about an antibody test - which tests for whether someone's got the antibodies, and therefore had it but recovered and would have immunity to further infection (for at least a while, as we still don't know how long-lasting the antibodies might be yet) - and that would be exactly what we need to "clear" people who're not a problem anymore, who can then all go back to work and such.
That would pretty much be what you're asking for here. But, basically, they've only just been approved - because you've got to double-check that these new tests actually do work or they're useless and a waste of taxpayer money, of course - and started purchasing them last night. It was mentioned by Matt Hancock on Question Time last night.
I think the problem here is that you understandably want clarity and action right now. This instant.
But the simple truth is that this is not currently possible. The antibody test has only just been approved and starting to ship last night. And it will naturally go to health workers, pharmacists, care workers and other key workers first, because those people we really need to "clear" as soon as possible, so they can all get back to the fight on the frontline.
(And I do believe that the antibody test was pioneered in the UK, so absolutely nobody has had this particular test yet.)
The current tests for COVID-19 itself take days to process. There was also mention from the government that there are newer tests that speed this up drastically. But, again, those are coming online and being scaled up. Tests have to be designed, tested to actually work, manufactured and that manufacturing scaled up to the massive, massive amounts we actually need - we all want that to be instant, but the simple reality is that setting things up and getting it running takes time.
