Covid-19 is a coronavirus which can cause illness in bothhumans and animals. The effect of the virus on an individual varies from personto person. Covid-19 is highly contagious and spreads very quickly from personto person.
Covid-19 is thought to be transmitted through close contactwith the virus. This occurs through droplets produced when a person withCovid-19 coughs or sneezes. Other people can then become infected with thevirus by breathing in the droplets. Transmission can also occur when a persontouches nearby surfaces and objects where the droplets have landed, and thentouches their eyes, nose or mouth.
Symptoms may not appear for up to two weeks after you havebecome infected with the virus. This means that it is possible to spread thevirus without having any symptoms.
If present, symptoms of Covid-19 include:
Covid-19 is spreading quickly. You should consider testingfor Covid-19 if you are experiencing any of the above symptoms, you haverecently travelled to a high-risk country or you think you may have come intocontact with someone who has Covid-19.
IF YOU TEST POSITIVE
The director general of the World Health Organization,Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, warned countries were not testing enough for thevirus and likened the approach to €œfighting a fire blindfolded€.
Ghebreyesus said thatwhile there had been €œa rapid escalation in social distancing measures€, suchas school closures, there had not been an €œurgent enough escalation in testing,isolation and contact tracing €“ which is the backbone of the response€.
€œAs I keep saying, all countries must take a comprehensiveapproach,€ he said.
€œBut the most effective way to prevent infections and savelives is breaking the chains of transmission. And to do that, you must test andisolate. You cannot fight a fire blindfolded. And we cannot stop this pandemicif we don€™t know who is infected.
€œWe have a simple message for all countries: test, test,test. Test every suspected case.€
The likely reason that Public Health England is not testingextensively maybe to do with logistics and economy. At the moment, the test isused mainly in the NHS hospitals for diagnosing the more severely ill.
There are 2 main tests :
Test number 1, the PCR or swab test is currently used by the government for diagnosing patients in the hospital and also to screen health workers. There are some laboratories selling this privately but unfortunately they have decided to ramp up the price.
Test number 2, the antibody test would be a game changer as it is instantaneous and would be much more affordable. So I would suggest we wait for this.
The antibody test is likely to be available in about 3 weeks. I have some initial information that the cost is about £5 + vat + delivery. This is a finger prick blood test, not dissimilar to a blood sugar test. Surescreen, the laboratory we are in touch with informs us that it will only be selling this to medical facilities, pharmacies etc, to conduct the test on the public.
I am not sure if Public Health England will make this available to everyone or just the key workers. We should know in a few weeks.
The German government plans to chart the spread of the disease by testing how many people have acquired antibodies. Researchers hope to have done 100,000 tests by the end of next month, which would be repeated regularly to help decide when to reopen schools and lift other restrictions.
Those shown to have developed immunity could be given a €œkind of vaccination passport that allows them, for example, to be exempted from curbs on their activities€, Gérard Krause, a leading immunologist co-ordinating the study, told Der Spiegel magazine.
Hopefully, we will have access to this antibody test. This means that people who are immune can start working again. As we cannot rely on people not to lie about their immunity, I think the vaccination passport is a good idea. It should be recognised internationally so we can start travelling again.
