A question.

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Rutlandtiger
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A question.

Post by Rutlandtiger »

Given the current coronavirus testing fiasco what are people's views regarding using testing capacity for professional sportsmen/women and not for key NHS workers, teachers, students etc?? Should the pause button be hit on "non critical" testing until the government sort out the mess??
GB72
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Re: A question.

Post by GB72 »

I have always assumed that testing for sport is carried out privately at the expense of the clubs rather than using resources that would be available to the government and NHS.
Rutlandtiger
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Re: A question.

Post by Rutlandtiger »

Probably are private and outside NHS however if capacity in these private schemes is available then should it be used at the moment to say allow a nurse, a teacher etc to return to work rather than allowing a match (whatever sport) to take place?
bendy
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Re: A question.

Post by bendy »

I know this question isn't aimed directly at Tigers / the Premiership, but assuming that's what you're hinting at - we've got a playing squad of what, 30? Let's add in some coaches, medics, physios, etc and say we need 50 people testing.

12 premiership clubs, each of those with 50 people, that's.... 600 tests.

We could test every one of those people every day of the week and it's still a drop in the ocean.

The NHS employs >1.5 million people; I'm not sure how many teachers we've got in the UK, but I'd be surprised if it wasn't >500k.

If Premiership rugby did the noble thing and gave up its 600 tests for them, they really wouldn't even notice. I'd much rather we had rugby games to watch, rather than 0.01% more NHS staff could be tested every week.

Appreciate I might be in a minority here though.
ads
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Re: A question.

Post by ads »

What would be better is randoms with no symptoms not using up tests when they don't need them...
MurphysLaw
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Re: A question.

Post by MurphysLaw »

I get the OP's point, but I am not sure it would make much difference.
I might well be missing something here, but it seems that current testing levels are still below capacity according to the government figures - by more than 30,000 a day (for pillar 1&2).
Latest figures....https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/testing
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Re: A question.

Post by Tigerbeat »

By dropping the testing the playing of matches would not be able to take place and sports clubs would make further losses and may not survive.
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chewbacca
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Re: A question.

Post by chewbacca »

ads wrote: Wed Sep 16, 2020 11:57 am What would be better is randoms with no symptoms not using up tests when they don't need them...
What would be better would be if there was sufficient testing capability. Testing asymptomatic people who may be infectious could then be part of a comprehensive and coherent strategy rather than the current fiasco.
I'm not cynical just experienced
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Re: A question.

Post by jgriffin »

MurphysLaw wrote: Wed Sep 16, 2020 12:11 pm I get the OP's point, but I am not sure it would make much difference.
I might well be missing something here, but it seems that current testing levels are still below capacity according to the government figures - by more than 30,000 a day (for pillar 1&2).
Latest figures....https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/testing
Testing professional sport would, i assume, be privately contracted. It is a tiny number of people, really. The rest of the issue is of historical and contemporary political debate. It will do no more than cause rancour on this forum IMO.
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ads
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Re: A question.

Post by ads »

chewbacca wrote: Wed Sep 16, 2020 12:54 pm
ads wrote: Wed Sep 16, 2020 11:57 am What would be better is randoms with no symptoms not using up tests when they don't need them...
What would be better would be if there was sufficient testing capability. Testing asymptomatic people who may be infectious could then be part of a comprehensive and coherent strategy rather than the current fiasco.
Agree.
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Re: A question.

Post by BFG »

Panicked folk filling their cars up with fuel from stockpiles in danger of going off to drive long distances to a test site, boosting the industry and the treasury.
Sounds like a cunning plan not a fiasco.
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MurphysLaw
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Re: A question.

Post by MurphysLaw »

[quote=jgriffin post_id=752489 time=1600257409 user_id=9496]
[quote=MurphysLaw post_id=752484 time=1600254702 user_id=3365]
I get the OP's point, but I am not sure it would make much difference.
I might well be missing something here, but it seems that current testing levels are still below capacity according to the government figures - by more than 30,000 a day (for pillar 1&2).
Latest figures....https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/testing
[/quote]
Testing professional sport would, i assume, be privately contracted. It is a tiny number of people, really. The rest of the issue is of historical and contemporary political debate. It will do no more than cause rancour on this forum IMO.
[/quote]
Yes, I think that PRL contracted with Randox Health for the weekly testing programme. However, it is still using lab capacity which, if the system was running at full capacity, could be an issue. The reason for giving the data is to show that, according to the government, it is not currently at capacity.
No need for any rancour imo. If anyone wants to get into political debate then there are other, non-Tigers/rugby forums for that.
OakhamTiger32
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Re: A question.

Post by OakhamTiger32 »

ads wrote: Wed Sep 16, 2020 11:57 am What would be better is randoms with no symptoms not using up tests when they don't need them...
Agreed. There was an unemployed lady on the BBC News this morning who said she went to book a COVID test and was told there was no capacity so she pretended to be a key worker and got a test the same day. When questioned by the reporter about whether she felt guilty for taking a key workers test she said not at all! This is the problem imho!
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Cardiff Tig
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Re: A question.

Post by Cardiff Tig »

There's literally 100,000s of test capacity in private labs this very second. The issue is that it's not "validated" by the government to feed into track and trace (because of contracts they've agreed with suppliers). Anyone can get a scientifically legitimate test online right now, you just have to pay for it yourself.
TigerFeetSteve
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Re: A question.

Post by TigerFeetSteve »

On the risk of verging off into politics too much.

My proposal
Limiting factors as to why people can't get tests seems to be logistics of getting the test itself NOT lab capacity. (This is only from what I've read). This is because they only are staffing very few test centres outside of hotspots.

To resolve this (rather than focus on moonshot or whatever), I would try to get into a position where all households in the UK are sent a home testing kit. Then if anyone in said household is ill post off their home testing kit (removing the wait to receive a home testing kit to arrive) results likely end of the next day as they're all barcoded it will automatically get another kit sent out to that household.

This removes a large portion of demand of test centres and they can be focused on specific areas. Private organisations can keep doing sports etc.

I think they'd get more people to just send off tests on spec, which will also help give better baseline data rather than people thinking they don't want to drive miles to a test centre and my sore throat ain't that bad so I'll just keep quiet
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