As another lockdown looms, we are not in a much better position to fight the virus

Perhaps it is some subliminal act of contrition for past slights, slurs and neglect, or simply a measure of the scale of the emergency, but it seems right and fitting that Liverpool should be the subject of the first city-wide Covid mass-testing experiment. With local hospitals at or near capacity, something had to be done to relieve the pressure on beds, and to protect lives. 

The “medical and moral disaster” the prime minister has spoken about is all too close to reality in Merseyside. This time, there is no room for any bungling by private contractor cronies, so Boris Johnson has also decided to utilise the army.  

It is an extraordinary state of affairs, even for these strange, unpredictable times. It highlights just how woeful the government’s record on test, trace and isolate has been. For what Liverpool proves, in extreme form, is that lockdowns are not an end in themselves, and will not suppress the virus in a sustained way without a proper, rapid public health response to local outbreaks. It is the failure to deliver this that has been one of the greatest of the many disappointments in the government’s response to Covid. The Liverpool exercise should prove the worth of such a system, were it in any doubt.  

The case for rapid mass testing has been made many times, and it is compelling. If the population was tested for Covid every week, which would catch many more asymptomatic cases, the infection could be kept low and people would be reassured about their own status. Families, friends and colleagues would be able to self-isolate promptly and break the chain of infection. At a national level, NHS staff, care workers and teachers should be given priority before mass testing becomes a matter of routine for the country as a whole. Pregnancy-style rapid home testing could revolutionise control of the disease.  

Much, though not all, of the technology exists to implement such a scheme, backed by local public health expertise. What is lacking in the UK is organisational infrastructure and a high enough rate of compliance with requests to stay home after a positive test. Nations in east Asia experienced in dealing with pandemics have long understood these principles and practices, and have experienced lower casualties as a result. Britain is so far behind that it is difficult to believe things will be put right, at last, by 2 December when this lockdown is due to be lifted. For many areas, the infection rate will be too high to be controlled if the rules are then relaxed, and Covid will quickly surge again. Nor will it be confined to one part of the country indefinitely. Liverpool might be the only part of the country where the virus will be under control, rather than temporarily suppressed, but that will not last if the rest of the northwest remains highly infected.  

The government, in other words, is not in a much better position than it was at the beginning of the first lockdown. Treatments have improved, testing capacity is far higher than in the spring, and local public health expertise has improved with grim experience. Yet the time bought in the initial lockdown was squandered because test, trace and isolate was mismanaged throughout the summer and autumn. Alas, as Mr Johnson might say, the next month of isolation and hardship will probably also prove to be in vain, such is the track record. After £12bn and a consistent record of failure, the time has surely come for someone, such as Baroness Dido Harding and other senior executives, to be made accountable. If not, then the prime minister has to answer for why he has tolerated such incompetence for so very long.