guardian .

As the UK battles with the overwhelming demand for Covid-19 tests, the health secretary, Matt Hancock, said on Friday that the country needs to come together to keep the infection levels down while we await the cavalry on the horizon.

The cavalry, he said, would come in the shape of the science that will bring a vaccine, effective treatments and the ability to undertake mass testing. Detecting cases, tracking contacts and containing the spread of infection remains our strongest weapon.

But the truth is we need urgently to find new approaches to achieve mass testing because the cavalry might not be here soon; we are in this for the long haul. This is now a global endemic infection – which means it is present within communities all the time, across the world.

We will get there faster if we work together and stop looking for nationalist solutions to pandemics

It might help to underline some essential points: Covid-19 is a serious disease that is lethal to some, causes devastating illness in others and yet can be completely symptom free in about 70% of cases. The risk varies enormously.

As we return to work and school, the surge in demand for testing is not a surprise, but neither is the difficulty that the system is having in keeping up. This scale of demand amounts to mass testing, but we do not yet have the systems or technology for the role we need mass testing to play – especially in the absence of a vaccine and effective antiviral drugs.
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