An end to the dreaded Covid count… now let’s get rid of quarantine and testing too, says NHS GP
Rejoice! An end to the dreaded Covid count… now let’s get rid of quarantine and testing too, writes GP Dr RENEE HOENDERKAMP
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The Government last month signalled its intention to scrap the legal requirement for infected people to self-isolate on March 24, and yesterday it was claimed that it will stop releasing daily Covid updates in April.
To which I say ‘Rejoice!’ – but why can’t we end both practices today? And, while we’re about it, stop testing too.
If you think such a course sounds alarmingly precipitate, allow me to explain why there is no need to delay a moment longer.
The truth is that the advent of the highly infectious (although markedly milder) Omicron variant has changed everything.
Last week the Case Fatality Rate (CFR) – the proportion of infected people who died of Covid – was hovering at around 0.95 per cent.
That is way below the 15 per cent recorded when the death rate was at its peak in May 2020 when testing was minimal.
And since Monday, when the Office For National Statistics included ‘reinfections’ – people who have contracted the virus more than once – on its daily Covid dashboard for the first time, the CFR has plummeted still further.
With the addition of hundreds of thousands of cases to the weekly total, by Tuesday the CFR had fallen to 0.19 per cent, a percentage akin to that of flu, an illness which currently has a fatality rate of between 0.1 and 0.2 per cent.
The average age of death from Covid, meanwhile, remains at the pre-pandemic 82, with data from the US showing that 75 per cent of people who die with Covid have no fewer than four underlying serious conditions.
Covid has become an endemic virus that causes only mild respiratory and/or feverish symptoms – or no symptoms at all – in those infected, says Dr Renee Hoenderkamp (pictured)
All of those deaths are, of course, individual tragedies, but the fact is that most of us do not need statistics to understand that we now inhabit a very different world to the dark days of the early pandemic when there was widespread serious illness, intensive care units were full, and hospitals were in danger of being overwhelmed.
Covid has become an endemic virus that causes only mild respiratory and/or feverish symptoms – or no symptoms at all – in those infected.
We have plenty of such viruses in circulation, of course, including the common cold and various strains of influenza.
Yet we do not force everyone who develops a sniffle to test for these viruses and self-isolate if found to be a carrier. Nor do we issue daily tolls of the number of new cases.
I passionately believe it is time we adopted the same attitude to Covid.
And I know of what I speak, not just because I am a GP, but because I am one of a growing number of people who has contracted Covid twice: once in November 2020 and again last December.
I was confined to the sofa for two weeks with my first bout of Covid and it took me six weeks to get back to full fighting fitness.
I was lucky, I was not in an at-risk group. I know several people who died. By contrast, my second experience of the virus a few weeks ago amounted to little more than a two-day runny nose.
If I hadn’t taken a Covid test –purely in the interests of following the guidance – I would never have known I had it.
Yet, although most people who contract Covid these days don’t get sick, they are having to behave as if they are, retreating behind their front doors for a week, sometimes more, their enforced absence causing havoc in workplaces everywhere, from hospitals to hospitality.
DR RENEE HOENDERKAMP: If I hadn’t taken a Covid test –purely in the interests of following the guidance – I would never have known I had it. (stock image of Covid lateral flow test)
Only last week I spoke to a despairing doctor friend forced to stay at home after testing positive, despite suffering nothing more serious than a bit of nasal congestion.
At my daughter’s nursery all the children are expected to test if they have a runny nose, or even the faintest of coughs, and – as anyone who has a toddler knows – in winter such symptoms persist much of the time.
This means almost daily lateral flow tests, with the dread of a positive result which could keep her at home and me away from my patients.
It is the very definition of the law of unintended consequences: a system created to protect us which is now enslaving us instead.
Of course, we must still do our utmost to safeguard the vulnerable, and we owe it to them to remain vigilant and sensible.
But the reality is that we cannot continue to put healthy adults and children under house arrest for a mild illness similar to any other common respiratory infection.
Now is the moment to forget about testing and quarantine and reclaim our pre-Covid lives.
Dr Renée Hoenderkamp is an NHS GP
