Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion
- Thread starter Sasaferrato
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bimble
floofy
oh. End of free lateral flow tests as country told to live with Covid
eta i see we've already done this, and agree its deeply unsurprising, we were something of an outlier for doing this one thing well.
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
A feature, not a bug. It's the only plan they have for getting over the staffing crisis.
Let's just hope a few million extra people being long term disabled doesn't affect services in any way.
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SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
And of course kite-flying the testing thing now gives people plenty of time to hoard the things and fuck up availability again.
Employers will also have plenty of time to figure out how to use such a change to railroad sick people into coming back to work early.
Employers will also have plenty of time to figure out how to use such a change to railroad sick people into coming back to work early.
andysays
Love and solidarity
It will be interesting to see how this all unfolds.
Maybe worth remembering that LFTs weren't made available to all to begin with, and that some employers (including mine) started providing them to their employees before they were generally available.
At some point, it was presumably decided that the benefits (mostly to the economy, rather than public health, I suspect) of providing them free to anyone who wanted one outweighed the costs of providing them, especially as having a negative test was used to avoid other potential controls or restrictions.
But there have already been moves towards reducing availability, including requiring people to register before collecting them, and the idea of prioritising those working in certain sectors.
I also suspect that if free provision of LFTs does happen, many employers will choose to go back to providing them for employees who can't work from home as a way of reducing staff absence.
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cupid_stunt
Chief seagull hater & farmerbarleymow's nemesis.
You can read the full, paywall smashed, Times article here - archive.ph
The headline is basically based on this quote.
It's just one 'source' expressing a view on the subject, so a bit of a non-story TBH.
It's logical at some point we will probably move away from mass testing at the current scale, but I doubt it'll happen anytime soon.
cupid_stunt
Chief seagull hater & farmerbarleymow's nemesis.
The former vaccine minister, Nadhim Zahawi, interviewed on Sky's Trevor Phillips show, was asked about ending free LFTs.
He said he had seen the article, has no idea where it has come from, it's not something he recognises, it's not something being discussed, and it's certainly not going to happen anytime soon, otherwise why would an extra 420 million LTFs have been ordered this month alone.
He said he had seen the article, has no idea where it has come from, it's not something he recognises, it's not something being discussed, and it's certainly not going to happen anytime soon, otherwise why would an extra 420 million LTFs have been ordered this month alone.
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
Oh well then if a tory minister says it ain't so.
We can see from the shortages over christmas that there's a lot of just-in-time stuff going on with these LFTs. 420 million test is not much more than one box each.
cupid_stunt
Chief seagull hater & farmerbarleymow's nemesis.
So, you believe an anonymous source is suggesting something is going to happen soon, which they haven't actually done, rather than at some point in the [distance] future?
It's clearly not going to happen in the short term.
Steel Icarus
ersatz maven
They couldn't give LFTs away fast enough at my college's two libraries a few months ago. Now nobody is allowed more than one box.
On a separate point, I get a lift with a colleague who kept banging on about "we have to live with Covid now" until eventually I'd had enough and asked her to explain what she meant by that, especially since literally the only imposition on her life since freedom day is having to wear a mask now and again. Eventually she confirmed she meant "the weak shall perish". If I didn't hate the idea of getting the bus to work daily I might have cancelled our arrangement on the spot.
On a separate point, I get a lift with a colleague who kept banging on about "we have to live with Covid now" until eventually I'd had enough and asked her to explain what she meant by that, especially since literally the only imposition on her life since freedom day is having to wear a mask now and again. Eventually she confirmed she meant "the weak shall perish". If I didn't hate the idea of getting the bus to work daily I might have cancelled our arrangement on the spot.
andysays
Love and solidarity
Depends what you mean by the short term.
As SpookyFrank points out 420 million tests is not much more than one box each, so that's about one months supply if people do two tests a week on average.
It's also worth remembering that the government has frequently floated "ideas" like this, and waited to gauge the response before implementing them.
I'm not saying that free tests will definitely end next week or next month, but I wouldn't be surprised if they are at least scaled back earlier than you seem to think is likely.
Steel Icarus
ersatz maven
Yeah, there was a report on Look North the other day apparently where a reporter couldn't get hold of any.
It's not beyond the realms of possibility that this utter bunch of venal cunts might make getting free LFTs difficult to find so people are relieved to be able to buy them for a small fee.
It's not beyond the realms of possibility that this utter bunch of venal cunts might make getting free LFTs difficult to find so people are relieved to be able to buy them for a small fee.
emanymton
A cat politely sat on the flaming gardener.
I think they were planning to start chargeing but ended that plan when Omicron hit.
Also worth remembering that ending free tests is not an all or nothing thing. They can stop giving away free tests to anyone who asks but still make them free in some circumstances they can't just change the channels used to get them or make you jump through a few more hoops.
They could make it so employers in certain industries can get them free to distribute to their staff and/or still be free to pensioner's and people claiming benefits. And dozens of other options I can't think of right now.
But then again this is a tory government and implementing unfair polices that disproportionately affect the poor is their bread and butter.
Also worth remembering that ending free tests is not an all or nothing thing. They can stop giving away free tests to anyone who asks but still make them free in some circumstances they can't just change the channels used to get them or make you jump through a few more hoops.
They could make it so employers in certain industries can get them free to distribute to their staff and/or still be free to pensioner's and people claiming benefits. And dozens of other options I can't think of right now.
But then again this is a tory government and implementing unfair polices that disproportionately affect the poor is their bread and butter.
bimble
floofy
Yep. If my twitter is anything to go by, the reaction to the mooted idea in the times is extreme and very loud pushback. It would be a wildly unpopular move. I'd be curious to know how evenly the use of LFs is spread across the population though. I don't imagine theres any way of finding out if conservative voters use fewer of them.
_Russ_
Never not Knowingly Misunderstood
BBC giving it airtime this morning, its just another Gov leak a bit better disguised than usual...testing the waters. Whether or not its going to happen sooner or later is dependent on a few things of course.
Monkeygrinder's Organ
Dodgy geezer swilling vapid lager
Survey data possibly. Wouldn't be the most reliable but would be a good indicator.
cupid_stunt
Chief seagull hater & farmerbarleymow's nemesis.
He said 420 million extra tests.
People seem to have short memories, this first came up in the Guardian back in mid-November, it was based on a discussion document for a 'exit strategy' at some point, possibly as early as April, but that was before omicron arrived. These sort of documents are regularly drawn-up and many, probably most, end-up going nowhere.
UK officials have compiled ‘Covid exit strategy’ from April – report
No 10 sources say ministers had not seen leaked plan to wind down testing and self-isolation
platinumsage
HaveMyPassword123
cupid_stunt
Chief seagull hater & farmerbarleymow's nemesis.
The problem has been two-fold, one the massive growth in cases, and secondly Johnson telling people to test more, the combination resulted in a massive increase in demand, which the system, particularly the logistics side of things, were not being able to cope with.
Back at the start of Dec. about a million tests a day were being reported, now it's nearer 2 million.
andysays
Love and solidarity
OK, the point I was attempting to make is that the fact they've ordered 420 million extra tests to cope with recent issues doesn't in itself act as any guarantee that they won't scale back free testing in the coming months, which is what you appeared to be suggesting.He said 420 million extra tests.
People seem to have short memories, this first came up in the Guardian back in mid-November, it was based on a discussion document for a 'exit strategy' at some point, possibly as early as April, but that was before omicron arrived. These sort of documents are regularly drawn-up and many, probably most, end-up going nowhere.
UK officials have compiled ‘Covid exit strategy’ from April – report
No 10 sources say ministers had not seen leaked plan to wind down testing and self-isolationwww.theguardian.com
cupid_stunt
Chief seagull hater & farmerbarleymow's nemesis.
Depends how many months, at some point, when/if we get on top of this bastard virus, scaling back testing will/may make sense, but we are clearly nowhere near that ATM, no one knows what the timescale will be, so nothing to get excited about, as I said in my first post it's a non-story ATM.
cupid_stunt
Chief seagull hater & farmerbarleymow's nemesis.
We are testing at far higher levels than at any pervious point, so hopefully it's a sign of good news.
cupid_stunt
Chief seagull hater & farmerbarleymow's nemesis.
And, you're an idiot, as you have proved time & time again.
bimble
floofy
The vast majority of other countries don’t offer free tests on demand to whoever wants them, we are an outlier, nhs related obvs, but I think they’d like to scale back and or start charging like everywhere else as soon as public outcry measurements allow.
StoneRoad
heckling from the back!
I suspect that the easiest way to "charge" for LFT's might be to put them on an equivalent to the system for prescriptions, albeit without needing to get a doc to sign off on a form.
I still think doing that would be wrong when depiffle is encouraging more testing, and there is a logistical SNAFU with demand vs supply because we're in the middle of a pandemic.
I still think doing that would be wrong when depiffle is encouraging more testing, and there is a logistical SNAFU with demand vs supply because we're in the middle of a pandemic.
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