More tests might not have saved lives, says top adviser
BETTER testing may not have reduced the UK death toll, the deputy chief medical officer has said, as she questioned whether it had helped Germany.
Dr Jenny Harries staunchly defended the Government’s original approach, saying it was right to switch the focus to managing people’s condition rather than testing, once the virus was out of control in the community.
Her comments come less than a week after Sir Patrick Vallance, the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser, conceded more testing should have been undertaken.
Speaking at the daily Downing Street press conference last night, Dr Harries described the initial “contain” phase of the response, where testing was vigorously pursued, as “very successful”.
She also said there was no evidence to connect German’s policy of continued aggressive testing with its significantly lower mortality figures.
“We are at different phases of the pandemic,” she said, cautioning that the rate of infection in Germany was starting to rise.
“I think we have rather ended up with a conversation which is a demand on testing without necessarily seeing that causal link.”
While acknowledging it was important to investigate a link between better testing and a reduction in deaths, she said: “I think the actual mechanism between the two is still not clear.”
As of 9am yesterday, 16,060 people had died in hospitals having tested positive, though thousands more have died in the community. More than 482,000 tests have been conducted, with 21,626 on Saturday.
Germany, which has recorded 4,547 deaths, was conducting 50,000 tests a day at the beginning of this month, with a total of 1,728,357 on April 15.
Dr Harries declined to say whether the UK had “passed the peak” of the virus but said “things look to be heading in the right direction”. While hospital data showed “we are starting to plateau across”, she cautioned that any relaxation in social distancing would “create a second peak”.