Labour calls for decisive action over next four weeks

Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary Jonathan Ashworth has stressed that the next weeks must be used to expand testing and fix contact tracing to avoid the mistakes of the summer. 

The Labour Party will call on ministers to use the next four weeks of lockdown measures to overhaul the test and trace regime. Ashworth will call on the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, to put in place regular testing programmes to ensure key workers and those most at risk are using new, readily available rapid turn-around saliva tests including those developed by UK universities.

Ashoworth is expected to use a House of Commons speech to say that the mistakes of the first wave and complacency of the past months cannot be repeated. Alongside a call to use this time to fixing contact tracing, the Shadow Health Secretary will call on the government to speed up the roll out of rapid turnaround testing, which only has'ad-hoc availability in certain hospitals and pilot sites', deploying this in all high-risk workplaces, and high-transmission settings as we head into winter.

The plan to roll out strategic mass testing would give a clear, coherent roadmap for the next phase of containing the virus. Using saliva testing would also mean the process is quicker and more comfortable than the PCR test used in the current test and trace set-up.

Ashworth will also say that effective, consistent ‘retrospective’ contact tracing that identifies the source of any outbreaks must support this expansion in testing, led by strengthened local public health teams and Directors of Public Health. The mistakes of the current contact tracing must be learnt from and the next four weeks must be used wisely.

Ashworth said: “Coronavirus is growing with ferocity and urgent action is needed to bring the R below 1 nationwide which is why Labour urged Boris Johnson to use the opportunity of the half term holiday for a time limited circuit break. This didn’t happen, and test and trace have been overwhelmed. Controlling Covid-19 depends on fixing tracing, ensuring the quick turnaround of tests and introducing regular, weekly testing to identify the 70 per cent of carriers who may not have symptoms but can still spread the virus.

“We have seen rapid saliva tests used effectively in UK universities. The government has no excuse to delay their introduction across the country and we’re calling on ministers to roll out these testing innovations now, starting with key workers including all NHS staff, those in care homes and those most at risk.

“Boris Johnson cannot waste the time his late lockdown buys him otherwise all the inevitable sacrifice and economic damage will have been in vain. He must use this time to fix Test and Trace putting local public health experts in control, instigate retrospective contact tracing and expand mass testing using the saliva based testing innovations our Universities have developed.”