A testing time

Saturday, 12 June 2021 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

As the Government announced that travel restrictions will be extended by another week, from 14-21 June, many once more took to social media platforms to voice their frustration. But it wasn’t frustration at having to be stuck at home for another week, rather it was frustration over a lack of clarity on what exactly it is the Government is doing to alleviate the situation during this period of unofficial lockdown.

During the previous lockdown during the same period last year, the go-to phrase was ‘contact tracing’; through contact tracing and testing, the Government was able to get cases down close to zero before the second wave hit.

But now, the situation is direr as deaths are nearing 100 per day, and cases are increasing exponentially—half of the country’s 200,000-plus cases have been recorded in the past two months alone.

While the announcement of the initial lockdown was a reactive rather than proactive measure, at least it was better late than never, but that combined with a reduction in testing—now less than 20,000 PCR tests a day—has left many scratching their heads. What exactly is the plan here?

To be clear, it is understood that there is a backlog in the handling of PCR tests—which is bad enough, and a reduction in testing until the backlog is cleared makes some sense; but that has not really been conveyed by the Government, and it also not any sort of permanent solution.

The permanent solution, aside from ensuring the entire population is vaccinated, is to ramp up testing and aim to steadily bring the number of active cases down to zero. This, on the face of it, would seem like the most prudent use of this impromptu lockdown period.

Over a year into this pandemic, with some 2,000 officially declared deaths, and a positive test rate nearly three times over the internationally agreed alarm bell threshold, there is simply no excuse for the Government to continue insisting on completely controlling and micromanaging the nation’s PCR testing capacity.

Every country that has successfully contained COVID-19 has built up a significant private sector testing capacity and driven their positive test rates down to well under 1%. The economic incentives for the private sector are immense. If large employers are permitted to build the capacity to regularly test their workers, factories can safely keep humming, essential offices can remain open, essential services can continue, and the economy is less likely to grind to a halt or stop and start in spurts every time a new ‘cluster’ emerges.

The need is urgent. COVID-19 Disease Control Minister Dr. Sudarshini Fernandopulle warns that the number of undetected COVID-19 patients in the community must be up to two or three times that of the official daily positive figures. This is a recipe for catastrophe.

The only sustainable solution is to radically ramp up our testing capacity to over 300,000 per day by unleashing the private sector, putting our doctors and scientists back in charge, and heeding their advice over narrow, short-term political considerations or instincts of centralised control.