... but minister hints plan is waste of time

MASS testing is not an accurate way to screen the whole population, a health minister has admitted.

Lord Bethell, minister for Innovation at the Department of Health, said that widespread asymptomatic testing could give ‘false reassurance’.

The Government has pinned its hopes on asymptomatic mass testing. In September Boris Johnson announced a plan to carry out ten million tests a day, called Operation Moonshot.

And only this week, it announced the expansion of asymptomatic mass testing and also said it would bring in testing in schools.

But Lord Bethell wrote to a constituent saying ‘swab-testing people with no symptoms is not an accurate way of screening the general population, as there is a real risk of giving false reassurance’. In the letter, seen by the British Medical Journal, he added: ‘Widespread asymptomatic testing could undermine the value of testing, as there is a risk of giving misleading results. Rather, only people with Covid19 symptoms should get tested.’

Around one in three individuals with Covid do not display symptoms so can infect people unknowingly. Most mass testing uses rapid lateral flow tests that do not need to be sent to a laboratory. But this is less accurate than PCR (Polymerase chain reaction) swab tests.

A Department of Health spokesman said: ‘The minister’s letter was in reply to a specific question about “blanket PCR testing” and it remains the case that PCR testing is prioritised for symptomatic testing.’

Ministers hope that broadening testing for those showing no symptoms will see positive cases found more quickly and help to break the chains of transmission.