A lot has been made of the costs of large-scale testing, and the tens of billions required is often actually stated as the main reason to not do it.

However, this completely ignores that this isn't screening for cancer.

This is screening for a highly transmissible respiratory virus which has shut down the economy and society for extended periods.

Yes, the programme should only be undertaken if it is shown to have net benefit and be cost-effective.

But just saying it costs £xBillion, without recognising the health, social, and economic costs of the pandemic that the testing is trying to combat is, as with everything in this pandemic it seems now, one-sided and unbalanced.

I have my personal doubts as to how effective voluntary asymptomatic testing can really be, especially if its not targeted well.

And uptake in deprived areas will be low, & will be a struggle to improve this.

And I have serious and legitimate concerns about the risks of behaviour change after a negative test.

And the fact that @DHSCgovuk (and some unis??!!) have so far refused to provide any communication of those risks, and this brings into question informed consent.

But I'm also tired of senior academics unable to engage in balanced debate tbh.

If you go on TV, the radio, write an article in The Daily Mail(?!), present both sides.

Dont cherry pick evidence and push your view. Present both sides.

Call government lies out yes, most of scientific community needs to do more on this imo, but don't use politicians being liars as an excuse to make a very reasonable, and desperately needed, scientific debate toxic and personal between scientists.

The other reason given is 'the test is poor.'

Note - every test has advantages & limitations.

Imo, in the UK, PCR process is simply too slow to have a significant effect on transmission.

Once you accept that, other solutions are worthy of evaluation.

But, we must accept those other solutions (or some of them) may not work. And if they don't we musn't continue to push them forward for political reasons.

I wonder how many times it takes for people, some of them apparently very senior scientists, to understand *there is no exact test for infectiousness.*

And we won't get one - microbiology is complicated.

So we have to work with what we've got.

Evaluate advantages and limitations of a test, and benefits and risks (& costs) of a testing programme. Collect quality pilot data.

And then make a decision, based on all available evidence. Move forward.

Perfect is the enemy of good.

Innovation & pushing the boundaries is OK.

What needs to be evaluated is not a test.

The *testing system* is what needs to be evaluated.

Any journalist or academic talking about Covid testing that does not lead with this distinction is making a mistake.

On this - I agree, the roll-out has been shambolic.

My point is, a lot of the 'anger' is being directed at the tests accuracy, and hasn't acknowledge the advantages/limitations. https://twitter.com/I_M_Stratton/status/1335558608575139841?s=20

But if the problem is with the roll-out, then when you on TV/in a newspaper, speak about the shambolic roll-out. - don't keep plugging the line of 'the test is poor,' without acknowledging that actually, PCR testing system is poor in that context also, and no testing is poor too.