Test drive

When recent research by the London School of Economics (LSE) found that there were nearly 20,000 “excess deaths” in care homes in England and Wales to 1 May it confirmed

what many have long-suspected, that Covid-19 deaths are being under-reported. In fact a Channel 4 News report over a month ago indicated that some doctors working for health boards in England may have deliberately avoided mentioning possible Covid-19 related deaths on death certificates. The latest ONS figures to 8 May indicate deaths across the UK in care homes

at nearly 10,000 in addition to the daily figures reported by the UK Government (now over 35,000), so based on LSE numbers it is reasonable to estimate total Covid-19 deaths across the UK as already, appallingly, in excess of 50,000.

With regard to care homes themselves, while no one would dispute the aim of regularly testing care home workers now that sufficient capacity across the UK is apparently in place, calls to regularly test all residents seem to lack understanding of the current situation. Given the fact that the antigen tests can be quite painful and possibly distressing, especially for the elderly, care home staff can understandably be reluctant to subject a resident to one test, never mind repeated tests. Furthermore, even tests carried out by trained professionals are reportedly producing up to one-in-three false negatives, so after testing there is still no guarantee of absence of the virus on which clinicians and care home staff could base future decisions.

Setting aside added delays in processing, antigen home test kits produce even more unreliable results, bringing into question a health strategy (separate from the UK government’s apparent political strategy of falsely claiming much greater numbers of tests “carried out”) which will divert much needed resources from a comprehensive Testtrace-isolate (TTI) strategy.

STAN GRODYNSKI Gosford Road, Longniddry