Little shop of horrors..

Flummoxed by policy of restricting testing

WE’RE not testing enough. I have to confess, I’m flummoxed by the government’s strategy of limiting testing.

It should be stepped up and spread out.

Last week Public Health England said it would only prioritise tests for people who need hospital care for pneumonia or acute respiratory illness.

All well and good, and those people need testing, but what about those who slip through the net because they haven’t been tested?

People with milder

I’M allowed out of the Isolation Arms, aka home, to buy food and the papers.

But even at 7am, I’m a slowcoach compared to the shelf-raiders who got there long before. Half-empty rows greet me at my local Co-op, with much less choice – in some cases, none – of grub.

Plenty of milk but not a lot of bread, no tinned meat, no pasta and no cans of beans except the Weight Watchers variety. I’d have to be on the brink of starvation for those.

But the in-house bakery is symptoms are being told to stay at home for seven days.

Shouldn’t they be tested too?

We’re right out of step with most other countries and for the life of me I can’t fathom why. The government’s argument is that we’ll need a proportion of people to have the coronavirus, hopefully in a mild form, to increase herd immunity.

But this is no reason not to roll out a comprehensive testing programme, because without one we have no idea how many people are infected. still working. Hallelujah! Hot buttered rolls for breakfast.

It’s just like starting the day in France, except there I’d be fined or even shot for leaving home right now.

Walking back, a Mirror reader enjoying a fag in his doorway says: “They’re trying to frighten us to bleeding death!” He must mean the TV news – and he does have a point. I’m a news junkie but I can do without this non-stop horror movie.