Covid-19 Test and Trace; Non-drug trials in a pandemic
Inside Health
BBC
4.4 • 575 Ratings
🗓️ 13 October 2020
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Margaret McCartney on National Test and Trace and why households are receiving multiple calls. Beth tells of being contacted many times when her child tested positive and began to think all the family had been separately in contact with different cases, until the penny dropped that the calls were all about the same contact - her daughter. Professor Kate Ardern, director of Public Health in Wigan explains why these calls from the national system aren't joined up. And is there time in a pandemic to do trials for non-drug interventions like pub curfews or social distancing? Professor Paul Glaziou explains that there are currently just 8 such trials globally, while Professor Martin McKee highlights the problems involved. And Margaret hears from Professor Atle Fretheim who is trying to set up a trial in Norway into the impact of school closures on infection control.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Greg Jenna and good news, Your Dead to Me is back for a new series. Here we go. Yes, we'll explore Emperor Nero's notorious reign with Professor Marybeard and Patton Oswald. I would not want my daughter having the remote control, not alone an empire. We'll dissect the decadent life of Philippe Duke-Dor-Leon with Tom Allen. I've often tried to pretend I'm an aristocrat and being very quickly knocked down. |
| 0:23.0 | And there'll be so much more with comedians like Olga Koch, Mike Mosniak and Rihalina. |
| 0:26.9 | Unexcited. |
| 0:27.6 | You're dead to me. |
| 0:28.5 | The comedy podcast that takes history seriously. |
| 0:30.9 | Listen first on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:34.4 | BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:37.9 | I'm Margaret McCartney, and this is Inside Health, which was first broadcast on Tuesday, the 13th of October. |
| 0:44.7 | Enjoy. |
| 0:45.8 | We've heard a lot about drugs being suggested or used to treat COVID-19. |
| 0:51.2 | But what about all the other things being used to prevent or manage coronavirus, |
| 0:56.1 | from curfews and pubs to the test and trace system to social distancing? As hospital admissions |
| 1:02.6 | start rising again, I'll be looking at the research that is and isn't being done into |
| 1:08.4 | so-called non-drug interventions. But first, the government's |
| 1:14.5 | test and trace system is currently processing upwards of 250,000 COVID tests per day. But to make |
| 1:22.4 | the results useful, they have to be acted on. People who have COVID-19 need to be given advice about how to isolate, trace for contacts, |
| 1:31.3 | and those contacts need to be advised to quarantine. |
| 1:34.5 | It's a complex system. |
| 1:37.1 | Sage, the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, |
| 1:40.7 | the scientists advising government, |
| 1:42.7 | have recently reported that the test and trace system is |
| 1:45.5 | simply not operating well enough. So what happens when a household member tests positive? |
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