Testing to contain the second wave threat

Bulletin 29

In early February, when there were less than two hundred confirmed COVID-19 cases outside mainland China, each country formulated its own national strategy for dealing with the emerging coronavirus.

The most successful strategies, which have minimised loss of life, contained the first wave through a rigorous regime of testing, contact tracing and quarantining, in addition to social distancing measures.

Strategies relying on self-isolation of infected people have failed because of widespread asymptomatic transmission. Mass testing is a prerequisite for breaking the invisible chains of asymptomatic transmission which inflate the reproduction number.

UK antigen testing capacity, manifestly deficient in the spring, should be up to South Korean levels by the autumn, thanks to newly authorised Roche and Abbott tests. These testing developments provide pharmaceutical grounds for UK optimism that the reproduction number, R, can be maintained below the epidemic threshold, and that a potential second wave threat of COVID-19 infection can be contained.