Mass laboratory trials using pregnancy-style kits aim to reduce quarantine time for case contact

Quarantine of contacts COVID-19 It has been suggested that cases can be eliminated half or completely under a high volume test plan.

Pregnancy-style test kits that give results in minutes are used under a plan to identify uninfected contacts and release them from quarantine for two weeks.

The mass test program will be tried by Liverpool ambulance personnel next week and will return to the shift if they are negative.

It will also be deployed to contacts for Covid-19 cases in the city that have been quarantined for at least 7 days.

If successful, it could be rolled out across the UK, but this is not expected to be a green light until next year.

Experts have foretold this plan as providing a way to “neutralize important social and economic parts at this critical time.”

Boris Johnson is currently in quarantine for two weeks after having an unmasked meeting with a member of parliament who tested positive for the coronavirus.

This is followed by growing concern that contact with Covid-19 cases does not comply with the two-week quarantine requirements, and one September study suggests that only 11% follow the rules. I will.

Liverpool ambulance personnel will be inspected for Covid-19 from Monday as part of their pilots and will be quarantined early.

They will be given a lateral flow test that will give them quick results.

The mass test plan requires the approval of Chris Whitti, UK Chief Medical Officer, before it can be provided to all contacts nationwide.

Professor Calum Temple, an expert in developmental medicine at the University of Liverpool and a member of SAGE, said: Times The plan will free key workers from quarantine.

“Using the lateral flow test on a daily basis can completely avoid quarantine,” he said.

“If six people are in a fire truck and the driver is Covid positive, the five people sitting behind him will have to go into quarantine for 14 days. That’s a pretty rough, arbitrary 14 days.

“So you can take the other five and give them a new driver, and give the rest a lateral low-test multi-pack to use each morning before the shift. And we put that fire truck on the road. You can leave it in. “

The optional two-week quarantine period is intended to prevent further spread of the virus by people who may have been infected because of exposure to the virus.

It was first recommended because anyone infected with the virus can take up to two weeks to develop symptoms.

However, many studies have shown that most infected people tend to develop symptoms within 5 days of being first infected. These include high temperatures, new continuous coughs, and loss of taste and smell.

After repeated warnings that most people who were told to self-isolate by testing and tracing may not follow the rules.

According to a preprinted survey published on medRxiv in September, less than 11% had passed the two-week quarantine period after surveying more than 40,000 people.

There is also growing concern about Test and Trace’s ability to stop the spread of the virus in the United Kingdom.

The latest Ministry of Health figures on system performance released Thursday show that the system After appearing to have improved slightly last week, the record number of Covid-19 cases could not be reached.

We missed 21,419 positive cases in the 7 days until November 11. This is the largest number since it was launched in the UK.

Of the 156,853 Covid-19 cases transferred to the system, 84.9 percent (133,195) were required to self-isolate. This is slightly below the previous week, which reached 85.6 percent (121,407) of all Covid-19 cases.

In close contact, the system reached the same percentage (60.5 percent) as last week among those who were in close proximity to Covid-19 cases for more than 15 minutes before being tested positive for the virus.

However, this meant failing to catch nearly 189,885 people who could be infected with the virus and continuing to circulate within the community, perhaps further spreading the disease. Last week they missed 190,835 of these individuals.

Test and Trace — This Boris Johnson The promise is to “dominate the world,” which has been below target for weeks. Since the infection began to surge again in late September, it has been struggling to infect many Covid-19 patients and their contacts.

Former TalkTalk executive boss Baroness Dido Harding is under pressure to stop the performance of the system.