UK didn’t focus enough on airborne Covid transmission of Covid at pandemic start, adviser admits

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Britain didn’t focus enough on airborne Covid transmission at the beginning of the pandemic, a Government adviser today admitted.

Professor Andrew Curran, chief scientific adviser for the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) — which issues the Government’s official workplace guidance, told MPs Covid advice may have overemphasised surface cleanliness, instead of the need for proper ventilation.

Speaking to the Science and Technology Committee, he said the recommendations have shifted as experts learn more about the virus. 

Top scientists initially feared the coronavirus was spread mainly via surfaces such as door handles, post boxes and desks at the start of the crisis last year.

It led to Government-issued guidance to businesses which instructed them to spend thousands of pounds on cleaning products to wipe down PCs and door handles for when employees returned to the workplace.

But research has since shown the risk of transmission from touching contaminated surfaces is low, nailing aerosol droplets as the main way the virus transmits between people. 

Professor Curran today said Britain should have focused more on stopping airborne transmission at work. 

He added that thousands of offices which have been spot-checked by the HSE have ignored Government guidance.

Professor Curran said: ‘I think we could have focused more on airborne transmission at the start definitely. 

‘And I think we have corrected that. 

‘There has been a big move towards identifying the need to improve ventilation, for example, to make sure spaces are appropriately managed from an occupancy perspective.’

The World Health Organization (WHO) has not recorded a single case of Covid being spread via surfaces. 

Professor Curran argued the HSE has also been unable to prove the coronavirus has ever spread through touching surfaces in the workplace because of how ‘incredibly difficult’ it is to pinpoint its spread.

But he insisted the agency’s swabbing of workplaces has shown that virus DNA can survive on surfaces.

He said: ‘I don’t want to overemphasise the potential for surface transmission, but I also wouldn’t want to rule it out. 

‘Identifying mRNA on a surface is not evidence of transmission but we have been able to grow live virus from surfaces that have been swabbed from outside the hospital environment… using samples from homes for example, remote controls and telephones and that kind of thing.’

The HSE still suggests employers invest in surface disinfectants to help clean workplaces, despite the lack of evidence suggesting the virus can be transmitted from them.

Researchers say droplets containing the SARS-CoV-2 virus emitted when an infected person coughs, sneezes or talks are the main way the disease is passed on.

A study in the 700,000-strong city of Boston, Massachusetts, suggested the chance of catching the virus from frequently touched surfaces such as ATMs, petrol pumps and pedestrian crossings is low.

Scientists swabbed hundreds of supermarket door handles, post boxes and bin lids between April and June last year, during the first wave. But they only detected Covid 29 times — or eight per cent of samples.

And even when the virus was identified it was in amounts so small the researchers said the risk of infection was ‘low’ — estimated to be as little as one in 2,000.

Despite evidence suggesting contaminated surfaces play a minimal role in transmission, experts say people should still sanitise their hands to stay safe. They argue the virus can still enter the body when infected hands touch the nose and mouth. 

Professor Curran also revealed HSE spot checks of more than 330,000 offices and workplaces in Britain found thousands were not complying with the agency’s Covid guidance.

He said while ‘more than 90 per cent’ were following recommendations to improve ventilation, invest in hand sanitiser and encourage face mask-wearing in enclosed environments.

The agency now recommends workplaces improve ventilation by opening windows, doors and air vents where possible.

It offers guidance on how offices can identify poorly-ventilated areas by using carbon dioxide monitors. 

And it guides employers on how and when to use air conditioning units to improve poor ventilation.

But Professor Curran said around four per cent — 13,200 — of the workplaces visited by the agency since October last year were not following all the rules.

He said: ‘To check whether things were actually being done appropriately, HSE instituted a series of spot inspections and therefore we’ve had boots on the ground, we’ve had people calling companies, following that up with visits.

‘There has been something like 330,000 spot inspections [and] the vast majority — upwards of 90 per cent — of organisation that we have been up to … are doing things that meet the guidance.

‘That’s not to say everybody gets it right.’

Meanwhile, another Government scientific adviser today hinted Britain’s mass testing for schoolchildren could be halted after January.

Professor Sir Andrew Pollard, the head of the Oxford Vaccine Group, told MPs that it was ‘absolutely critical we keep children in school’, adding the biggest impact of the pandemic had been the psychological effect of being forced to stay home.

But Professor Lucy Chappell, chief scientific adviser to the Department of Health and Social Care, said the Government was committed to testing until at least January.

Speaking at the same committee she said ditching tests after that date was under consideration, with the multi-billion scheme being slammed for keeping healthy people out of classrooms and the workplace.

Professor Chappell said: ‘In the short term, I think we should be continuing with testing, particularly symptomatic individuals.

‘And I know that other groups are evaluating at what point we reconsider testing asymptomatic individuals beyond January, beyond spring.’

She added: ‘I would like to think that in five years’ time we won’t all be lateral flow testing.

‘There’s a stretchable point between those five years clearly.’

She added: ‘Between now and January, it’s clear that we’ve committed to testing.

‘We are then reconsidering where we go beyond January, beyond spring.’

Professor Pollard told MPs: ‘Clearly, the large amount of testing in schools is very disruptive to the system, whether that is the individual child who is then isolating because they tested positive but they’re completely well, or because of the concerns that that raises more widely in the school — we’re aware of families taking their children out because someone’s tested positive in a school.

‘So I think there is a huge impact of widespread testing in schools.

‘I think probably we need to move in the pandemic, over this winter, maybe towards the end of the winter to a completely different system of clinically-driven testing.

‘In other words, testing people who are unwell rather than having regular testing of those people who are well, because that does drive a lot of these actions that happen, particularly in schools, if you have lots of asymptomatic testing.’