MORNING SERIAL
AT THE start of the crisis, for self-tests analysed in Welsh labs, the person was required to use a cotton bud and swab right at the back of the throat. This is placed in a dry tube and sent off for analysis. English tests require people to swab twice. One goes deep in a person’s nose and the other in their throat. They are then placed in about half a tablespoon of fluid. The Welsh version is less invasive, more pleasant for patients and doesn’t require the fluid for transport.
Wales has been using dry swabs for about 15 years, a technique developed for transporting samples of flu from areas of rural Wales where it took more time to get samples back to labs. According to experts I spoke to, samples are actually more secure on the dry swab and other countries have been contacting Public Health Wales to copy the method.
PHW took over the Cardiff City Stadium testing centre, which it ran until it was handed on to Cardiff and Vale Health Board. It was then, along with all other Welsh drive-in centres, taken over again by Deloitte and is part of the Lighthouse Labs network which answers to the UK Government. The Lighthouse Labs had serious issues and failings later in the year, which unfortunately fall outside the scope of this book.
The end result of the whole debacle is that the testing system in Wales is now extremely complicated because both English and Welsh models are being run simultaneously. Because some tests are going to Welsh labs and some to Lighthouse labs, mix-ups are regularly made. Samples with a single dry swab often end up at the Lighthouse labs and double swab wet samples at Welsh labs – neither is equipped to test the samples supplied in error. The situation is confusing for members of the public, who don’t know if they should be contacting the health board, PHW or ringing 119
This in turn leads to delays that make it all the harder to contain the virus. Often people trying to find out where their test went would be best placed to simply ask if they had a swab up their nose or not in order to work out if it was a Welsh or English lab it will have gone to.
Lockdown Wales by Will Hayward £9.99 www.serenbooks.com/ productdisplay/lockdown-wales ISBN 9781781726013