Ministers’ plans to scale back free PCR Covid tests could weaken the UK’s defences if a new variant of the virus emerges that results in “significant new waves” of cases, a group representing local public health chiefs has warned.
Before a meeting of cabinet ministers and the prime minister later this week to discuss the “learning to live with Covid” strategy, the Association of Directors of Public Health (ADPH) said that forcing people to pay for lateral flow tests would also have a “detrimental impact” on take-up, particularly among disadvantaged communities.
The group said that despite the government being expected to roll back the last remaining Covid laws from next week, coronavirus was “yet to become endemic”, and added it was “difficult to predict when this state may be attained”.
“Significant levels of cases, hospitalisations and deaths continue to disrupt and devastate individuals, public services and the economy,” a briefing note said. “There remains a degree of unpredictability about the course ahead.”
Whitehall sources told the Guardian on Monday that ministers were pressing ahead with plans to start winding down Covid testing and payments for isolation from next week to save more than £10bn.
In a veiled criticism of Boris Johnson, given his investigation by the Metropolitan police for allegedly attending a series of lockdown-breaking parties, the ADPH said political leaders had “a responsibility to model good behaviour and foster an environment of trust and collective spirit”.
While the group said it wanted to “avoid strict measures and lockdowns”, it called on Johnson to “chart a sensible path between the extremes of lockdowns and letting the virus rip”.
The ADPH said: “Oscillating harms businesses and disrupts public services more than a course of action to keep infection rates more stable.”
Concern was also raised about the ability of councils and other community organisations to continue running local contact-tracing operations, if the national test and trace service is pared back significantly.
“Unless additional resources is available, capacity to do any contact-tracing at a local authority level will be extremely limited and in many areas nonexistent,” the ADPH said.
It also said that even when the legal requirement for someone to isolate if they have Covid is dropped, “it will still be the case that this is sensible public health advice”.
Employers were urged to help “by creating a culture in which coming to work when ill, whether with Covid-19 or the flu, is discouraged and considered not in the interests of the individual concerned, their colleagues or customers”.
Where outbreaks happen in schools and care homes, the ADPH recommended that infection prevention “will continue to be appropriate for these settings, though the thresholds for intervention are likely to be higher”.
In care homes, the ADPH said mask wearing should increase when an outbreak occurs and more antiviral treatment be made available. It advised that, where it is found that Covid is being transmitted in schools, there should be a “short-term return to mask wearing at least in secondary settings”.
After reports that the ONS’ infection survey could be scrapped, the ADPH argued it “should be retained”.
The Department of Health and Social Care was contacted for comment.
A government spokesperson said this week that free testing was kept “under review” but insisted “no decisions have been made on the provision of free testing”.
The spokesperson added: “Everyone can continue to get free tests and we are continuing to encourage people to use rapid tests when they need them.
“Testing continues to play an important role in helping people live their day-to-day lives, keep businesses running and keep young people in school.”
