As the interview above with frontline ODP, Jo-Ann Elliott, demonstrates, coronavirus testing of key workers is vital in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. Looking at her own experience, Jo-Ann outlines how she came into contact with a coronavirus positive person and then experienced some mild symptoms herself. Without testing, however, she could not determine whether she actually had COVID-19 and, therefore, self-quarantined for 2 weeks just to play it safe.
Protecting Key Workers Already in Shortage
Firstly, testing key workers is necessary to meet with the increase in demand of hospital staff. This outbreak equates to a large influx of patients which, in turn, requires a greater number of healthcare workers. At the same time, all these healthcare workers will be more exposed to the virus being in close proximity to coronavirus patients. But, due to a long asymptomatic incubation period—up to 14 days—workers could be infected without having any idea. They could then also spread it to their home environment and the outside world. And, once symptoms do appear, the key workers will, of course, have to self-isolate for two weeks. This vicious cycle will create more and more infected healthcare workers, who will have to spend time in quarantine while the patient population will continue to grow. In addition, without testing, healthcare staff with the common cold or a slight cough that is not the coronavirus will also self-isolate needlessly, when they could be caring for their patients. The latter experience led one junior doctor, Rebecca McCauley, to start a change.org petition for testing key workers; it was signed by 700,000 people.
Protecting the Most Vulnerable
Frontline healthcare workers come into direct contact with the most vulnerable people: patients in hospitals with other ailments. The Centre for Disease Control and Prevention found that 89.3% of people hospitalised for coronavirus had an underlying illness already, including chronic lung, metabolic and cardiovascular disease. This means that healthcare workers should be extra careful when interacting with these patients, ensuring to wear the proper PPE. But, beyond that, testing key workers would mean the most vulnerable would be less exposed to the virus in the healthcare setting. This will prevent these patients from becoming critical and requiring hospitalisation, and, thus, not overwhelm the NHS with the high number of patients.
Understanding the Virus
As this is a new virus, there is much to be learned about it. To understand the extent and scale of the outbreak, as well as how it has evolved in individuals and in the global population, a tremendous amount of information needs to be gathered. Testing people, especially healthcare staff, and subsequently mapping and tracing the spread of the virus, will be vital in order to grasp a better understanding of how Covid-19 works—and, ultimately, how to beat it.
A Pandemic Paragon
According to BBC, 132 laboratories in Germany test an average of 116,665 swabs for coronarvirus every single day. On the other hand, UK has only tested 316, 836 in total. This has made a huge difference in Germany’s overall strategy. This means that infected individuals were tested positive early on in the pandemic and, therefore, isolated sooner—helping slow down the spread of the virus early on and keeping the fatality rate lower than other European countries. Although it remains to be seen whether this will change in the coming weeks, so far, it has played a positive impact on the German population. Several factors could have contributed, including a strong pharmaceutical industry, a greater governmental budget for healthcare and decentralisation of many healthcare protocols such as testing. Nevertheless, UK can certainly learn from Germany and follow suite to provide widespread testing, starting with all of the frontline key workers.
Going Forward
The UK government has pledged its support in prioritising testing, especially of frontline key workers, but time is of the essence. They have bought 3.5 million tests, which presently await approval before being deployed amongst the UK population. The quicker they implement widespread testing, as in Germany, the quicker we will know who is at risk of spreading the infection and who isn’t. This will not only slow down the spread, but also ensure there are enough capable workers to take care of patients. Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organisation said, “We have a simple message for all countries: test, test, test.” Let’s hope the UK follows this expert advice soon.