Coronavirus: Does Norwich have the answer to getting ahead of COVID-19?
Written by News on 13/05/2020
Scientists in Norwich want to test all 140,000 of the city’s residents for COVID-19 weekly to “get ahead” of the virus and ease the lockdown.
Professor Neil Hall, director of research facility the Earlham Institute in the city, said at the moment “we’re always chasing the disease, we’re always a step behind”.
Mass testing would be “one way I think that we could get ahead of it”, he added.
A pilot scheme focusing on “a few wards of around 10,000 people” would take about a fortnight to organise, he said.
The concept has been submitted to the Department of Health and Social Care.
People would be told to self-swab on a particular day – alerted perhaps via a text message – after being sent barcoded tests in the post.
Completed kits could be picked up by Army reserves on the same day as the bin collection.
“The bin lorries go around the city in a seven-day cycle,” Prof Hall said.
“Everyone knows on what day they have to put their bin out and therefore it’s easier to remember that you might need to have your test kit picked up that day.”
Anyone who tested positive would be given advice on how to self-isolate, and their contacts would be traced.
Scaling up to cover the whole of Norwich might take a few months, Prof Hall said.
Norwich is well suited to the project because the “number of labs and molecular biologists we have per head of population is very high because of the research park”, he said.
Prof Hall would like the idea to become part of government testing strategy.
He said: “At the moment, as I understand it, the community testing approach isn’t at the forefront of their strategy and I think they’re still making sure there’s capacity to deliver to high-risk environments – care workers and hospitals is their priority.”
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “We have significantly and rapidly increased our testing capability and are working to ensure everyone who needs a test can get one.
“We continually consider options to extend testing, but have no immediate plans for city-wide testing.”
(c) Sky News 2020: Coronavirus: Does Norwich have the answer to getting ahead of COVID-19?
