The leading Covid-19 testing expert, Dr Quinton Fivelman PhD, Chief Scientific Officer at London Medical Laboratory, is warning that the Government’s ‘Living with Covid’ plans are extremely misguided, as they ignore mounting evidence that up to 30% of people could develop PASC (Post-acute sequelae of coronavirus), commonly known as ‘Long Covid’.
Dr Fivelman warns: ‘1 April is a grimly appropriate date to end the provision of free Covid testing in England. Infection rates remain high and there are still significant numbers of people in hospital with the virus. Even the Government’s own top scientists have urged them to change their minds and have suggested the changes could lead to an increase in hospitalisations.
‘The new “Living with Covid” plans are foolish as they do not consider the significant number of Covid patients who go on to develop long-term symptoms that will have an impact on their quality of life, reduce their performance at work and cost the NHS millions in the future.
‘Covid-19 is not a bad cold nor even the flu; it is a new virus whose longer-term impact we are only beginning to realise. Now is not the time to be scrapping contact tracing and legal self-isolation rules. And it is absolutely not the time to end free Covid testing.
‘It’s vital that people know if they have contracted Covid-19, rather than another virus such as influenza, so that they can look out for any of the various PASC / Long Covid symptoms that scientist and doctors are increasingly concerned about.
‘There are an estimated 1.3 million people in the UK currently suffering from Long Covid symptoms, according to the Government’s Office for National Statistics (ONS). That may only constitute 2% of the population, but there’s mounting concern that the true number of long-term sufferers is higher and will continue to grow, especially if we have another surge of infections.
‘A study last year by the University of Washington found that in a random group of Covid patients (over 80% of whom were never hospitalised for the virus), approximately 30% reported persistent PASC symptoms as long as nine months after illness.
‘The University of Leicester led a separate study of just over 1,000 people who had needed hospital treatment for Covid. The majority (seven in 10) had not fully recovered five months after they were discharged.
‘It is also likely that many of us are either not reporting ongoing symptoms or are experiencing new health problems that seem unassociated with a mild Covid-19 illness some months previously.
‘Continued knowledge of Covid’s prevalence will enable us to prepare for the increasing impact of PASC / Long Covid illnesses and to understand new variants entering the UK. The axing of free Covid testing means we are very likely to lose this overall picture. The Government claims free Covid testing costs it around £2bn a month, but if it ends testing too soon, that could be significantly than the final bill for businesses and the NHS if PASC symptoms continue to escalate.
