The Government’s testing scheme and in particular its mass testing rollout is coming under intense fire after leaked emails from senior officials raised “urgent” concerns about the accuracy of rapid testing.
One senior executive stated that the lateral flow test positive results have a staggeringly low two to 10 per cent of being accurate. Last week the government introduced twice-weekly rapid testing for everyone in England.
However, leaked emails have now shown that officials are considering downscaling the rollout due to growing concerns around the accuracy of lateral flow tests. Ben Dyson who is the Executive Director of Strategy at NHS Improvement wrote in an email last Friday: “As of today, someone who gets a positive LFT result in (say) London has at best a 25 per cent chance of it being a true positive, but if it is a self-reported test potentially as low as 10 per cent (on an optimistic assumption about specificity) or as low as two per cent (on a more pessimistic assumption)”.
The Department of Health and Social Care has declined the opportunity to address these leaked emails. They have however said: “With around one in three people not showing symptoms of Covid-19, regular, rapid testing is an essential tool to control the spread of the virus as restrictions ease by picking up cases that would not otherwise have been detected”.
A spokesperson for the DHSC has said, that at this stage, there were no plans to halt the rollout of rapid tests.
Current Affairs Correspondent | My name is Oliver Down I am 22, and a staunch brexiteer. I am a Bristolian lad who studied politics in Leicester. I believe in free speech and accurate journalism and I won’t be afraid to give you “the other side” of the story!
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