Concerns have been raised to Cumbria’s public health boss about the ability to detect future COVID-19 variants as the Government begins to scale back the testing programme.
Colin Cox, Cumbria’s director of public health, gave an update on the county’s position at this stage in the pandemic at a meeting on Friday.
Cumbria’s Health and Wellbeing Board heard that while the coronavirus situation has vastly improved “it isn’t over”.
Mr Cox said: “We will be continuing to see the effects of COVID-19 for some time yet.”
Reflecting on the pandemic to date, Mr Cox’s presentation illustrated the vast increases in cases with each wave, from the initial outbreak in Wuhan to the latest spike in cases caused by the Omicron variant.
He said: “The Alpha wave in January 2021 was in many ways the worst of them, certainly from a health perspective, but you will see from this the number of cases were actually considered greater in the Delta wave and the Omicron wave dwarfed everything over a short period of time.”
Cumbria has seen more than 132,000 cases recorded over the last two years.
However, Mr Cox said that the breakdown of cases shows “how critical vaccination has been to the pandemic.
“In Omicron it was about four and a half times as many cases, but the number of hospitalisations and deaths was vastly reduced compared to what we’ve seen in the Delta and Alpha waves.”
Mr Cox said that the scaling back of all coronavirus restrictions, and the launch of a ‘Living With Covid-19’ plan was “a turning point” but warned that hospitals remain under pressure.
“From the end of this month, essentially all the public testing services are also going to end,” he added. “There will still be testing availability for some higher-risk groups and in some settings including social care but we await the detail of some of those.
“There is a potential for new variants to emerge, new variants undoubtedly will emerge out of COVID. The good question is whether they will hit us as a new wave and what the consequence of those will be.”
Mr Cox said that there is “every possibility” a future wave is more serious.
Virginia Taylor, leader of Eden District Council, raised concerns about Cumbria’s ability to identify new variants as testing ramps down.
She said: “At the moment there’ll be less testing going on, it’s going to be a lot less consistent.
“Purely identifying them is going to be more difficult and dealing with them and particularly if it’s going to be one which is more dangerous. In the beginning thanks to everybody and especially you, we did it ourselves and got ahead of the situation.
“Can we try and do the same thing with variants of concern? If people have to pay for tests, that’s going to be a big disincentive to know what’s going on.”
Mr Cox said: “There is no doubt that as we reduce the amount of testing, the surveillance capacity we’ve got will diminish.”
All free testing sites for COVID-19 need to close in the county by Thursday March 31.
Two sites which have already been confirmed for closure are the mobile testing units at Ambleside Rothay Holme and Barrow-in-Furness Waterside, with both sites closing from Monday, March 7.
Everyone will still be able to access free testing until March 31 – including online orders.
After April 1, free lateral flow tests will no longer be available to the general public and businesses.
There are some professional groups who will continue to receive access to free testing and these are likely to include the social care workforce and higher risk groups, such as those with weakened immune systems.
Clarity regarding which professional groups will continue to receive free testing has not yet been confirmed by the Government but updates are expected soon, the county council said.
