Blinded by Corona : Excellent.' Jon Snow (9781783342020) by Ashton John

Author:Ashton, John [John Ashton]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lightning Source Inc
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Testing

What were the issues behind the lack of testing capacity that the government admitted to? The UK was not the only country facing capacity issues as the epidemic struck. PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) test machines were essential, together with the swabs to take samples from the nose and throat, together with the reagents and enzymes to amplify segments of RNA (Ribonucleic acid) for analysis to positively identify the virus. The main manufacturers of PCR machines were in Germany, Switzerland and the US and the need to increase the numbers of these machines, together with a shortage of reagents, enzymes and swabs was what lay behind the embarrassing situation that the UK found itself in.

This was coupled with the progressive reduction of laboratory facilities that was a part of a ten year long process driven by an ideology of economies of scale, outsourcing and centralising into London and the South-East. The regionally based Public Health Service that had been folded into the Health Protection Agency in 2003 had been followed by a withering away of local laboratory capacity, something that had been consolidated initially with the abolition of the Regional Health Authorities who had reported directly to the Chief Medical Officer rather than to a separate body in Whitehall.

By 2020 the first port of call by Public Health England was confined to the laboratories at Colindale in North London. As did Barry Rees, PHE must have known that Colindale’s testing capacity was going to be swamped in a matter of time. The failure of PHE to mobilise the remaining NHS capacity from around the country, as well as the extensive capacity to be found in university laboratories, until late in the day remained a mystery, particularly given the mouthing of Johnson and his ministers that they were ‘well-prepared’.

The explanation given for shortages of reagents was that this was not a UK strength, despite having a vibrant pharmaceutical manufacturing sector. But, in view of Professor Friedrich’s tent laboratory, it didn’t require a lot of strength just the art of persuasion in seeking cooperation to address an emergency. What the cabinet may have meant to say is that, unlike local organisations, it didn’t have a clue where excess capacity was up and down the country, and nor did it have the social network to arrange for it to be activated, let alone did it have the manpower to project-manage such a task centrally and in a very short time frame from London.

Comparisons with Germany, whose federal structure had enabled it to maintain a resilient regional network of collaborating laboratories highlighted the disastrous effects of the incessant drive to centralisation in the UK. Although the German local public-health system had also suffered from a lack of attention before the pandemic, a concerted drive to build local capacity for the leg work of testing and tracing had saved the day. This had enabled Germany to reach daily levels of testing that the UK could only fantasise about. The distressing position the UK found itself in

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