WHO WILL TAKE THE EX-HOUSING MINISTER’S SEAT?
AT Intel, antigen testing to identify those who may have and may spread Covid was introduced on Monday, with HSE co-operation.
The giant US multinational, which is building a massive extension to its plant in Leixlip, Co. Kildare, had a bad scare last week when 85 construction workers tested positive for the virus over two days.
There were fears that the building site, where there are more than 5,000 workers at present, would have to be closed temporarily, but as the operation is one of the most commercially important in the history of the State it has been allowed to continue.
Antigen testing, which gives a result within half an hour, even if it can give false results in a minority of cases, has become increasingly popular among employers who want or have to get their workers onto site.
Senator Regina Doherty of Fine Gael even said on Monday that the HSE and Department of Health have been using it to assess the health of workers returning to their offices.
But what’s good enough for them isn’t good enough for the rest of us, it seems.
The Government’s delay in announcing the widespread use of antigen testing in an effort to identify and isolate Covid-19 infections is not easily understood or excused.
Accurate
Experts in immunology and virology – at least those outside the NPHET fold – are convinced of the merits of antigen testing in helping to identify those with the virus and in keeping them away from others.
A PCR test may be more accurate – the so-called ‘gold standard’ – but it can take between one and two days to get a result. Hence, the arguments in favour of the faster and cheaper antigen tests.
An expert group was set up under the chairmanship of the Government’s chief scientific adviser, Mark Ferguson. It reported to the Government months ago. Eventually, in midMarch, the Government published the report, which recommended the rollout of the technology across a wide range of settings, including in schools, to facilitate sport and in universities and workplaces around the country.
The report requested immediate action and at scale, to introvaccine duce a series of pilots and feasibility studies in primary and secondary schools.
However, the HSE said it was ‘examining’ the results of a number of studies on antigen testing and was planning rapid testing pilot projects in the ‘coming months’. Sure, what’s the rush? In the UK, where they have totally outdone us to date on administration, they have also organised free twiceweekly tests for everyone in any household where a child has returned to school.
Even better, all employers with a staff of over ten are provided with free rapid-test kits for every employee. Professor Luke O’Neill of Trinity College Dublin has been one of the advocates for a system whereby each household would be supplied with ten free antigen tests and then be encouraged to purchase more.
Professor Liam Fanning, professor of immunovirology at University College Cork, argues that antigen tests should have been rolled out at the start of the year when infection rates were so high. But better late than never, he wants it done now to help speed up the safe reopening of the country.
He concedes that the system will be very reliant on people testing themselves properly and reporting positive results honestly, but believes that after a year of lockdowns, most people would behave appropriately.
Fearful
It is clearly a potential way of getting students back to universities and other third-level institutions in September – and most of the colleges are fearful that, notwithstanding the vaccine rollout, it might otherwise be January 2022 before they can risk taking in numbers on campuses that are way bigger than those managed in schools or most workplaces.
The suspicion is growing that NPHET will do almost everything to slow down any Government impulses to take chances for the common good, that NPHET fears antigen testing would lead to a ‘premature’ easing of restrictions.
Even though we have busy supermarkets every day that are not apparently causing major problems, other shops seemingly are too risky to open, so the best they and we can hope for in May is so-called ‘click and collect’.
And NPHET clearly believes we can’t be trusted to meet up with friends in our own back gardens or on air-filled apartment balconies, because we’ll go indoors if it rains or gets cold, or we’ll let our guests use the indoor toilets.
If that is the thinking, then maybe it would be no surprise if NPHET is responsible for holding back Government action on the beneficial use of antigen testing, on the basis that if it works, then the ability to hold the line on lockdown becomes harder to justify.