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Coronavirus: Is the UK testing enough people? Coronavirus: Can I get tested for coronavirus?
(about 16 hours later)
Testing is seen as key to tackling coronavirus and the UK hopes to rapidly increase the number of people tested in the coming weeks. Testing is key to tackling coronavirus and the UK hopes to increase the number of people tested to 25,000 a day in the coming weeks.
But how does the UK's approach compare with that of other countries and who can get tested? Daily testing reached about 8,000 people by the end of March.
How many tests is the UK doing? What is the test?
The UK government says just over 8,000 people have been tested for coronavirus in the past day, reaching a total of 143,186 people in total since the end of February. To find out if someone currently has Covid-19, a swab is taken of their nose or throat and this is sent off to a lab to look for signs of the virus's genetic material.
It hopes to carry out 25,000 tests a day by the end of April. Can I get tested?
The majority of these tests have been on seriously ill hospital patients with symptoms of the virus. At the moment, most of the tests are being reserved for seriously ill patients in hospital. Most people with symptoms can't get tested to see if they are currently infected with coronavirus.
Testing is now being rolled out to NHS staff workers to see whether they are currently infected. But these tests are now being made available to doctors and nurses who have symptoms, or who live in a household with someone who does. Tests for other health and care workers will follow.
Critical care doctors and nurses are being tested first, followed by staff in emergency departments, paramedics and GPs. Tests for social care workers will follow. Why is testing important?
Why is Germany testing more than the UK? There are two main reasons for testing people - to diagnose them individually, and to try to understand how widely and to whom the virus has spread ("surveillance testing").
The UK has been testing about 2,000 people per million citizens, compared with about 6,000 tests per million in Germany. This can allow the health service to plan for extra demand on intensive care units.
Germany has made many more labs available to process tests - 176 compared with the UK's 48 labs. It can inform decisions around tightening or relaxing social distancing measures - for example, if it became known that the virus had already infected large numbers of people then a lockdown might become less necessary.
The UK did not act fast enough to make more labs available, according to Anthony Costello, former director of the Institute for Global Health at University College London (UCL). And not testing more widely means that many people might be self-isolating for no good reason, including NHS workers.
At first, Public Health England was only conducting the test at its own eight laboratories. Over the last two weeks it has rolled testing out further, to the NHS's network of pathology labs and is now using 48 labs in total for processing hospital patients' tests. The director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has said, "we cannot stop this pandemic if we do not know who is infected".
The government announced on Friday it would also begin drawing on the laboratory capacity of universities and research institutes to test NHS workers. Why isn't the UK doing more tests?
The UK does not appear to have the resources to do mass testing at the moment.
The government said it has reached the lab capacity to do about 12,000 tests, but so far just over 8,000 people are being tested a day.
At first, Public Health England was only conducting the test at its own eight laboratories. This has been expanded to 40 NHS labs - so 48 labs in total.
Testing depends not just on the number of labs, but on the availability of machines, test kits and the chemicals these kits need to work. These components are in high demand globally.Testing depends not just on the number of labs, but on the availability of machines, test kits and the chemicals these kits need to work. These components are in high demand globally.
Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove said, "A critical constraint on the ability to rapidly increase testing capacity is the availability of the chemical agents which are necessary in the testing. South Korea, which has been able to test far more widely than the UK has, acted very quickly to approve the production of testing kits, allowing it to build up a stockpile.
"The prime minister and the health secretary are working with companies worldwide to ensure that we get the material we need to increase tests of all kinds." Despite having a slightly smaller population than the UK, it has twice as many labs and about two-and-a-half times the weekly testing capacity.
As well as Germany, the UK is also lagging behind comparable countries like Italy, the US and South Korea when it comes to how many tests are being carried out per million people. What about antibody tests?
However, the UK has tested more than Japan, where the rate is currently 257 per million (32,497 people tested in total). The testing being done at the moment looks for signs someone currently has the virus.
The director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has instructed countries to "test, test, test". There is another type of test - an antibody test - which looks for signs of immunity in the blood and could show whether someone's already had coronavirus.
"We cannot stop this pandemic if we do not know who is infected," he said.
Can I get a test for coronavirus?
At present, coronavirus testing is not being offered to the general public.
The UK does not have the resources in terms of equipment to do mass testing at the moment, although the government is trying to increase its capacity.
The government has bought three-and-a-half million antibody tests which could show whether you recently had coronavirus, even if you had no symptoms.
These could help work out how widespread the disease has been and whether people who may have been self-isolating - including vital NHS staff - are safe to go back to work.
On Monday, infectious disease expert Prof Neil Ferguson said that it was hoped the tests would start rolling out "within days".
However, tests are being carried out to ensure they work before they are made available.
Antibody tests use a drop of blood on a device a bit like a pregnancy test.Antibody tests use a drop of blood on a device a bit like a pregnancy test.
These could help work out how widespread the disease has been and whether people who may have been self-isolating - including vital NHS staff - are safe to go back to work.
The government has bought three-and-a-half million antibody tests, but they are not yet available to use. The tests are still being checked to make sure they work.
An inaccurate test which tells someone they have immunity when they don't could be very problematic.
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What do I need to know about the coronavirus?What do I need to know about the coronavirus?
Can I buy a private test?
You can, but Public Health England advises against it, as it says there is not yet enough information about them.
"It is not known whether either a positive or negative result is reliable," reads a statement on its website.