UK Enlarges Its Investment into Rapid Covid-19 Test Kit Trials

Summary

• The UK government will roll out a new COVID- 19 test program and has earmarked an investment of £500 million for that
• The current test that the government wants to invest in will give results in less than 20 minutes compared to hours it takes currently, which has resulted in a huge backlog
• The new test which will be saliva-based has already been approved in the United States of America, and other countries like Belgium, Italy and France have already started training with these tests.

The United Kingdom has moved a step forward in its mission to eradicate the virus. The Health Minister of Her Majesty's Government Matt Hancock has said that the government will roll out a new COVID- 19 test that will provide accurate results in less than 20 minutes. The government which had earmarked an investment of £500 million for this, is under intense pressure to expand the scope of its efforts of the winter months when the pandemic is widely being expected to make a resurgence. The pandemic which till now has infected as many as 335,000 people and claimed around 41,500 lives, has inflicted considerable damage to the British economy which is now expected to shrink by around 10 per cent for the full year. The country which went into lockdown in the month of March to withstand the initial shock has been gradually opening since the beginning of May, leading to a steady recovery in some of the key sectors, and raising hopes for others. A resurgence will not only undo what has been achieved in the past few months but will also pull down the economy into a much deeper recession.

War against the pandemic and the importance of rapid testing

The current PCR-T test, which is the standard in almost all countries against the virus, takes hours to give a result and has created a massive backlog of samples waiting for the results. In the fight against the virus when time is of the essence to contain its spread, creating a backlog will give the virus the opportunity to spread to more people before the host gets identified.

This new test will not only help to identify the infected people early but will also help NHS to isolate and contain the virus to small locations thereby allowing the authorities to open the rest of the economy for business. The rapid testing is also important as it will reduce the time spent by people in quarantine facilities and home isolation and reduce the burden on the NHS which will then be able to put up a more focused fight. The testing will also bring down the risk levels for the health care workers and law enforcement officials who are constantly exposed to the likely infected people.

The winter months & the threat to the fragile recovery

Experts across the world who have dealt with coronavirus previously during the SARS and the MERS pandemics have warned that there is a good probability that there could be a resurgence in the number of infections in the winter months. Should such a possibility does arise, it will be catastrophic for the British economy. The amount of money the government has spent on supporting the economy through the lockdown, and the recovery that has happened since the economy was opened up, will all be lost, with very little in the hands of the government to help.

Thus an investment of £500 million in the new testing procedure at this time will go a long way in saving several billion, in months to come and also help accelerate the recovery process.

How the vaccination process will work and the impact on the current business activity levels

A mega vaccination drive is also on the cards in the coming months. The Oxford University vaccine candidate is nearing its clinical trial phase, with billions of doses already in storage for mass vaccination as soon as it gets government approval. It is highly likely that the government will earmark a similar sum of money to procure and distribute the vaccine to the majority of the people in the country get vaccinated at the earliest possible time. The rapid test will be able to augment this process, by allowing authorities to test people at a single location for the infection and send the infected for treatment while healthy one will be inoculated. This procedure could actually prove to be a very effective way to sharply bring down the infection levels in the country and accelerate the rate of recovery.

Conclusion

There is now an increased urgency in the country to find a solution to the pandemic before it is able to put pressure by resurrecting. The plan of the government it seems is to mount a two-pronged attack on the pandemic, one with the vaccine and the other with the rapid test so that the pandemic does not even get a chance to resurrect. The amount of spending the government has earmarked in this regard is actually minuscule compared to what it could be spending now on NHS, implementing public safety measures in its current state of response.

It is also extremely important that people in the country be made more confident to come out of their houses and join back in their economic activities. The information that the government is able to rapidly identify infected patients and put a cap on the rapid spread will be a great confidence booster for the masses. This confidence will not only prompt an improvement in the consumer confidence levels but will also prompt businesses to spend and expand their business activity levels at an accelerated pace.

Thirdly and most importantly, the last quarter of the year is the festival part of the year in the UK as well as the other part of the world. If an effective vaccination and a testing programme get implemented before that, it could result in big support in the recovery of the economy.