Criticising WHO Testing Strategy
"Priority should be given to the detection and protection of vulnerable patients and health care workers."
https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/331509/WHO-COVID-19-lab_testing-2020.1-eng.pdf
https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/331509/WHO-COVID-19-lab_testing-2020.1-eng.pdf
UK didn't obey this guideline, stupidly, indeed, until yesterday, 29 March 2020.
This report is dated 22 March 2020.
Although I agree that health care workers is the utmost priority for testing, vulnerable patients are not. Their chances of survival is low anyway. If testing is so limited, better reserve it to those that need them the most for survival or those that are most likely to spread the disease, i.e. the younger people.
What is missing is the strategy to preserve the economy by testing productive and essential workers so that they are exempted from lockdown or quarantine. The antibody test is an example.
Also the role of rapid testing that is less sensitive but still vital. They can be used to detect suspects multiple times, with the assumption that the level of virus in the suspected case is so low that he cannot infect others within a day after the testing, when more testings will be required.
Strangely, for flu, there is a policy on the use of rapid testing.
https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/331509/WHO-COVID-19-lab_testing-2020.1-eng.pdf
https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/331509/WHO-COVID-19-lab_testing-2020.1-eng.pdf
UK didn't obey this guideline, stupidly, indeed, until yesterday, 29 March 2020.
This report is dated 22 March 2020.
Although I agree that health care workers is the utmost priority for testing, vulnerable patients are not. Their chances of survival is low anyway. If testing is so limited, better reserve it to those that need them the most for survival or those that are most likely to spread the disease, i.e. the younger people.
What is missing is the strategy to preserve the economy by testing productive and essential workers so that they are exempted from lockdown or quarantine. The antibody test is an example.
Also the role of rapid testing that is less sensitive but still vital. They can be used to detect suspects multiple times, with the assumption that the level of virus in the suspected case is so low that he cannot infect others within a day after the testing, when more testings will be required.
Strangely, for flu, there is a policy on the use of rapid testing.
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