Perhaps the simplest and cheapest way of conducting nation-wide Covid-19 testing will be by scrapping the current piecemeal and methodless system and replacing it by daily testing on an individual basis. At first sight this idea may sound revolutionary but once simpler, cheaper and more accurate testing procedures become available, personal testing will become acceptable and second nature.
Professors Fauci, Brilliant and Afshordi along with the other leading virus specialists seem to be of the view that the best way to control Covid-19 is to create herd immunity and they have intimated this can be achieved in a matter of months-perhaps as little as 6 months- if we go about things in the right way.
As is well known, the UK administration initially favoured this approach back in February/March of 2020, but they went about it in the wrong way because the necessary testing and related procedures were not then in place. They shelved the idea in favour of ‘lockdown’ on 23 March, which many consider to have been too late.
Perhaps the ‘right way’ to achieve herd immunity might be:
1. To concentrate on developing a fast and inexpensive way for people to test themselves and their children on a daily basis for the presence of the virus.
2. They would be asked to log their test results in a journal to be made available for inspection if requested.
3. Anyone ‘presenting positive’ would need to undergo a 14 day self- isolation period.
4. At the end of the self-isolation period people testing positive would be registered as ‘Covid-19 Immune’.
5. They would be issued with an official ‘Covid-19 Immune Certificate or Card’.
6. Because the duration of Covid-19 immunity is still unknown, Covid-19 Immune Card holders would still need to continue self-testing, but less frequently.
7. Unless and until they presented positive again, Immune Card holders would be entitled to return to their pre-Covid way of life in every particular, including the non-wearing of face masks.
8. Immune Card holders would quickly grow in number and holding a card would be seen as a ‘badge of honour’.
9. Testing elderly and vulnerable people would be a job for their individual Care Home or Hospital.
10. Each new card issued would accelerate the ‘Holy Grail’ of achieving herd immunity and would give the scientific community the breathing space needed to develop effective vaccines.
Self-testing and declaration would help us emerge from our current fog of uncertainty.
**In the past, all pandemics (and this includes the so-called ‘Spanish ‘Flu’) were only finally brought under control when herd immunity was achieved. Only recently have vaccines begun to play their part: just today (25 August 2020) the WHO declared Africa free of naturally occurring Polio**
