The government has quietly changed its guidance on the number of days within which people with coronavirus symptoms should get tested, the Guardian has learned.
On the government website people are now told: “On day eight, you need to go to a test site,” after an apparent change on Friday morning. Earlier in the day it was quoted as saying: “You need to get the test done in the first five days of having symptoms.”
Multiple internal messages seen by the Guardian show coronavirus helpline team leaders suggesting the tests do not provide an accurate result more than five days after first having symptoms. “If over the five days, the tests will not provide an accurate result,” one said.
Staff reacted with surprise and bemusement on Friday to the change. The reason behind the move was unclear, but there will be suggestions that it is intended to help manage stretched capacity. To control the spread of coronavirus, it is vital that potential carriers of the disease are identified as swiftly as possible after exhibiting symptoms.
Wayback Machine.
Prof Allyson Pollock, a member of the Independent Sage committee, said extending the time period to eight days from symptom onset “risks identifying people who are no longer infectious” and could result in an unnecessary isolation of contacts.
“The priority for the government should be to find symptomatic people early and to follow the statutory notification system which requires medical practitioners to notify suspected cases to local authorities,” she said.
“This can only be done by integrating testing into clinical care in primary care settings and through local contact tracing. The problem is the government has carved testing out of health services and general practice and public health and created a centralised, ineffective, privatised testing and contact-tracing system instead of rebuilding public health and primary care and NHS lab capacity locally.”
The polymerase chain reaction test used in the UK is not a test of infectiousness, experts have said, as it does not distinguish between those who have the virus and are infectious and those who are no longer infectious. Therefore, there have been many false results.
John Ashton, a former regional public health director and author of the book Blinded by Corona, said testing after eight days was as useful as a “chocolate fireguard”.
“The horses will have bolted with more people becoming infected,” he said. “This is out of the same playbook as downgrading the classification of the virus severity to justify less PPE. Once you are symptomatic, you are infectious. It’s a disgrace.”
The mayor of London’s office website, among others, echoes the previous government advice: “You need to have the test in the first five days of having symptoms.”
The NHS has updated its website accordingly following the change by the government, but a number of clinical commissioning groups, including Leicester City and Kent and Medway, along with NHS Scotland still advise people to get tested within five days.
“On days 1 to 4 of your symptoms, you can get tested at a site or at home,” Leicester City CCG’s website reads. “If you’re ordering a home test kit on day 4, do it by 3pm. On day 5, you need to go to a test site. It’s too late to order a home test kit.”
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) refused to comment. It is understood that the new eight-day cutoff for testing reflects what the government considers the latest clinical and public health advice on the most appropriate window for testing, taking into account the time people are asked to spend self-isolating.
This advice is said to be under constant review. DHSC did not share the new evidence with the Guardian.
The government’s largely privatised testing regime has been roundly criticised after many people with suspected coronavirus were unable to get tested and others were asked to travel hundreds of miles.
Serious issues remain throughout the country, with many people still unable to easily access tests. Labour’s Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi raised this with the health secretary, Matt Hancock, in the House of Commons on Friday and was told there was record testing capacity. “I will not have this divisive language, I just won’t have it,” Hancock said.
Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi MP
(@TanDhesi)Imposition of 10pm curfew on hospitality industry was entirely avoidable, but became inevitable due to Govt’s shambolic privatised test & trace system.
Instead of fobbing me off again or giving misinformation, it’d be good if Health Secretary could actually answer my question. pic.twitter.com/IyvYVok4sC
