• DOI:10.1177/0141076820965533
• Corpus ID: 222839822

Fixing England’s COVID-19 response: learning from international experience

@article{Crozier2020FixingEC,
  title={Fixing England’s COVID-19 response: learning from international experience},
  author={Alex Crozier and Martin Mckee and Selina Rajan},
  journal={Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine},
  year={2020},
  volume={113},
  pages={422 - 427}
}

• A. Crozier, M. Mckee, S. Rajan
• Published 15 October 2020
• Medicine
• Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine

Judged by the number of tests conducted, the UK’s response to COVID-19 seems a success. About 20 million reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction swabs were processed in hospitals and commercial laboratories between 1 April and 28 September, with nearly 1.5 million in the third week of September alone. In terms of population, this is one of the highest rates anywhere. Yet cases and, since late September, hospital admissions and deaths tell a different story. Between 22 August and 7 September, the estimated doubling time of viral prevalence accelerated to approximately eight days and on 11 September, the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies confirmed that the reproductive number (Rt) was at least 1 in most regions in England. Test positivity in the community has risen above 4% overall, with the greatest increases of 8%–11% in those aged over 85 years. The Executive Chair of the National Institute for Health Protection admitted that testing demand is currently ‘multiples’ of capacity. Action is needed now. Independent Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies has published a 10-point plan, which includes rebuilding the testing system. Drawing on international experience, we make a series of immediate and longer-term recommendations (Table 1) to make this work.