Industry must continue to lobby for lateral flow alternative to PCR, says Aito Specialist Agents chair Gemma Antrobus.
Over a year ago, our clients and other international travellers were introduced to expensive PCR tests.
Originally administered in a select few private clinics across the country, such tests could cost around £225 per person.
We’d only just come out of lockdown. We didn’t know it was the first of three such lockdowns to come, nor that things would get progressively worse before they would get better, so we were happy to promote this new and expensive hurdle to our clients in order to get them travelling again and to instil some trust and confidence in the new procedures.
Fast forward – more than 365 days! – and the testing debacle rarely seems to be out of the headlines. But it’s all the more sinister now.
It’s been 14 weeks since the international travel ban was lifted and, with the introduction of a more formal testing regime for entry into some overseas countries – and certainly for returning to the UK – our government published a list of hundreds of test providers. They were very clear that, if you wanted to travel, tests could only be conducted by those on the UK government’s ‘special list’.
Little vetting
Testing is apparently a serious business to the government, so you would expect this list of providers to have been heavily vetted, to have undergone formal certification and to be continually monitored. But this has just not been the case; the wheels are clearly starting to fall off.
Very few test companies are accredited; in fact, it’s just over 15%. Most testing companies are self‑certified. So, in theory, you or I could have set up a testing company claiming that we knew what we were doing.
There has been no formal monitoring, thus far, of the companies on the government list. Companies can charge what they like, but some are trying to entice travellers with the promise of tests costing as little as £20.
If you’ve ever managed to book one of these mythical tests, you’ll have to drive to the middle of nowhere on February 30 and sing Happy Birthday while hopping on one foot; they just don’t exist. But neither do some of the companies. Oh, and let’s not mention those companies owned by friends and families of politicians . . . it’s like the NHS Test and Trace fiasco all over again.
Little sequencing
But, apparently, the testing will help us make our way out of this mess. It will help identify the “variants of concern” and therefore provide more stability for the travel industry in the not‑too‑distant future.
If this is the case, why are so few tests genomically sequenced for these supposed vital variants? That was the whole point of insisting on PCR tests, which require lab analysis.
In March, on average, only 49% of tests were being sequenced. This dropped to just 5% in early July. Who knows how low this figure may be now? Of the countries from which the so-called variants were apparently coming into the UK (South Africa and India), in some cases only a tiny percentage of arrivals’ tests were being sequenced. Why on earth are we putting up with all this?
As an industry we must keep our voices raised about this big issue and continue to lobby for initial use of much cheaper lateral flow tests, followed up by an expensive PCR test only if the initial test proves positive.
Above all else, if these tests are here to stay then the cost has to be significantly reduced. If other countries in Europe can charge circa £20 for a PCR test, why can’t the UK?
The CMA is already knee-deep in its investigation into this shambles and I keenly await its report. Let’s hope that it is 100% accurate, speedy and sorts out this mess once and for all.