Could city experiment show way to end lockdown?

SCIENTISTS have called for a British city to be used in a trial in which every resident would undergo weekly virus testing to end lockdown.

They say the experiment could prove the best way to end social distancing entirely, allowing the country to get back to normal – potentially in a matter of weeks. Julian Peto, professor of epidemiology at the London

School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said weekly saliva tests for everyone in a medium-sized city, coupled with asking people living with those who test positive to stay at home and tracing of their contacts, could eradicate the virus.

The academic, part of a team backing the move in a paper in the journal Royal Society Open Science, said: ‘This could end the lockdown completely and not even require people to practise social distancing.

‘The problem is asymptomatic people who do not realise they have Covid because they have no symptoms. Weekly testing could virtually prevent households with these people in transmitting the virus into the community.’ The researchers add: ‘Whether the combined effect would control the epidemic can only be determined by a demonstration study in which a whole city is tested weekly and ends lockdown.’

They say 10million tests per day are needed for weekly testing of the UK population. With saliva tests, they state: ‘A facility with about 100 staff could probably do 50,000 tests per day. If so, a city of 350,000 people could be served by a single laboratory.’