Could free lateral flow tests be on the way out? The Sunday Times says said so on its front page but Nadhim Zahawi has denied it outright. It’s clear there’s a split in government over this.
Officials quoted in the Sunday Times article say the country needs to realise Covid is here to stay, and to accept that vaccines have blunted most of its force. David Spiegelhalter, one of the most respected statisticians who has been commenting on the pandemic, has said Britain is ‘certainly not going to see a big rise in intensive care admissions and deaths’. Given that deaths are running at 150 a day (and Sage forecast suggested a range of ‘600 to 6,000 deaths a day’) that raises the prospect of the actual death numbers coming nowhere near the range Sage was giving just three weeks ago. In London, the Omicron epicentre, intensive care bed usage has been falling towards normal levels — far behind what was seen this time last year.
The mooted plan on tests is that they would still be rolled out in schools, care homes and hospitals, as well as to people with symptoms.
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