Covid-19: test all health and care workers weekly, says UK scientist

“My colleagues in the Crick contacted Downing Street in March, wrote to minister [Matt] Hancock in April, emphasising two main things: the importance of regular systematic testing of all healthcare workers, including not only frontline doctors and nurses but support staff, ambulance drivers and other healthcare providers, such as the care homes, GP surgeries, community nurses and the like. These all need to be tested. “At the height of the pandemic, our own research – and of course that only backs up what’s been done elsewhere – is that up to 45% of healthcare workers were infected. And they were infecting their colleagues … reinfecting patients, yet they weren’t being tested systematically.”