Free PCR and possibly also lateral flow tests will be axed within weeks as part of Boris Johnson’s plan to live with Covid, though tests are likely to remain free for vulnerable people and within hospitals and high-risk settings. The Sun has the story.
Brits are currently told to get a highly-accurate PCR test after coming into contact with someone with Covid, but this advice is also set for the chop as the nation gets back to normal.
PCR tests which were previously needed for travel could cost more than £100 privately.
Free lateral flow kits could also be scrapped under money-saving plans reportedly being pushed by the Treasury.
Everyone would have to start paying for rapid self-tests except the oldest age groups, according to the Guardian.
People who catch the virus would also stop being told to take an LFT on days five and six to further reduce their use.
Ministers are poring over a menu of Covid options this week before making final calls.
The PM is desperate to end all Covid rules – including the legal duty to self isolate – by the end of the month.
Government insiders said PCR tests were hugely expensive and were less needed now cheaper lateral flow tests are widely available.
Advice for workers to take lateral flow tests regularly will also be scrapped.
And ministers may also scale down the Office for National Statistics Covid monitoring programme, which tests a sample of the population every week to find out how widespread it is.
Pity it appears some recommendations to test will remain, despite Omnicold plainly not warranting any special consideration as a contagious disease.
Worth reading in full.
Discussion
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Why does anyone need to take a test? I know when I’ve a cold. I don’t need to stick something contaminated with mercury and glass up my nasal passage or down my throat.
Is a care home a ‘high-risk setting’, even if all the residents and staff have been jabbed, and in my own mother’s case, has also had and recovered from covid (at 92!)? I would suggest not, yet they still seem to be treating Omicold as the most lethal virus you could encounter, still insisting on LFT testing, masks and PPE! They might as well lock the elderly up in solitary confinement in prisons.
It just should all end now, today people must stop wearing masks outside about 90 percent still are or 85 percent of people near me in Tottenham all ages young middle aged mid twenties and even young healthy children it is cruel and just must stop . I still see businesses a dog grooming service up Muswell Hill saying wear a mask and keep your distance surely this is just crazy for fit healthy people all the restrictions were just wrong and ridiculous,
but this is from September 2020 it is not a mandate and no longer two metres in supermarkets retail stores also when I recently went to get my teeth checked up on I waited 23 months because they could not be bothered to open up my dentist in Wood Green . I wore a Lanyard in case they questioned why I did not wear a mask my dentist was masked to the eyeballs another woman mask and a face shield blue gloves I said at reception I could not wear a mask and the man who was masked just took my name the time of my appointment I waited about 10 minutes and then I got seen… Read more »
Confession time: my son is getting ready for A Levels and his school passes these things out regularly. He has taken two tests since March last year (both times he felt unwell, something called a cold, if you remember those). But, we keep stockpiling them for when we will get to travel internationally again. I know they aren’t really free, and that it is a panic-oriented behaviour. But, I just figure, if they are going to give them away, why not.
Some day, perhaps soon, perhaps a year from now, nations won’t require either tests or vaccination (boosters) to travel. Until then, I’m just trying to set things up to work for my family. I have to go to Austria in June and, I won’t have my booster until the last possible moment as required by the Austrians. I’ve had Covid, did my two jabs “for the sake of the nation” and now, I’m storing up free testing kits. Am I a crook? Immoral? Exhausted? Normal? Not really sure. But, needed to confess to people who understand.
I suspect you had the first two jabs so that you could travel, and not “for the sake of the nation”.
You’re still alive … and haven’t succumbed to the dreaded ‘ADE’ that all the jabbed were going to be sorry about before last Christmas. Well, that didn’t happen, did it?
We all have to make our own minds up as to what the truth is:
https://guardians300.com/ – 850 ‘constables’ – doing what?
Alpha Men Assemble – vanished – to Wetherspoon’s?
Nanobots in the vaccines – well, not a lot seems to have happened there either.
”Nanobots in the vaccines – well, not a lot seems to have happened there either.”
Yet.
Pity it appears some recommendations to test will remain, despite Omnicold plainly not warranting any special consideration as a contagious disease.
Might it not be a good idea for those vulnerable groups who have symptoms to test to see if they have got it? This would be true if the same four conditions applied to any contagious disease.
(Some people are going to react to this by saying the tests don’t work. If they don’t work then the whole idea of a testing is pointless and you wonder why Will brought up the article in the first place.)
”Might it not be a good idea for those vulnerable groups who have symptoms to test to see if they have got it?”
WHY, if they’re not sick enough for hospital? Then they’d be tested there, and treated. If they have symptoms, take prophylactics anyway.
This is obsessional and needs to stop.
But the initial symptoms are very generic. Are you suggesting everyone in the vulnerable groups (e.g. age over 70) who has the symptoms of a cold take a prophylactic for Covid rather than test to see if they have it?
Given that the foundation of the whole of English Law is first assumption innocent and that testing is based on first assumption guilty, compliance with Law of the Land of all employers and all organisations in England who’ve been testing staff etc is, in my view, questionable.
Seeing so many in England accept that accusation of guilt I find heart-breaking for the sake of both their self-respect and English Law.
I’ve always felt strongly about first assumption of English Law as it enables innocents to live free from fear and, some ‘western’ countries assume the opposite.
It’s that freedom from fear my predecessors fought in defence of in both WWII and WWI. Without freedom from fear there is no life, only a mere existence in ‘hell on Earth’, which is probably why so many fought to the death in its defence.
I doubt testing per se is over; restrictions and testing for HIV then synthetic mRNA jabs for that World-wide seem next.
As I understood it, ‘emergency powers’ were for up to 2 years (Mar 20 – Mar 22) and, as expected, so many draconian laws have been put on the Statute Books in the last 2 years that ‘emergency powers’… Read more »
My thoughts exactly. The British always had an understanding of freedom under the law. Tony Hancock could make a joke about Magna Carta, but that was because everybody knew what he was making fun of. Now, most people simply have no concept and I’ve even been asked by well educated, successful business people what ‘common law’ is, for example.
‘highly accurate’ PCR? The test its inventor said ought not to be used as a diagnostic tool?
Yeah. Like.
The Kary Mullis objection comes up so often I thought of another way looking at it.
Suppose a friend spends some time in Africa and has a short affair. Shortly after returning he learns that his lover had AIDS. If he has HIV then the sooner he starts treatment the better, in particular it greatly reduces his chance of getting AIDS. However, according to conventional medicine the only way to know if you have HIV, unless you have already progressed to AIDS, is a test. Suppose the only test available is the well regarded PCR test. Do you say to him – “Kary Mullis said you can’t use PCR tests for diagnosis so there is no point”?
I see they are persisting with the claim that the PCR test is highly accurate.
Do you think that the covid act introduced 2 years ago, and regularly renewed since, will be allowed to die a natural death at its expiry at the end of March, or do you think TPTB will endeavour to keep it going? I really hope it goes, but then how does that pan out for vaccines? It is my understanding (please correct me if I’m wrong) that because the vaccines are still experimental, they can only be administered under the auspices of this act because of the emergency powers it gives. No act, no emergency, so no compulsion to vaccinate/get vaccinated with untested gloop.
Personally, I think it’s quite possible that another law will be made, because otherwise how can the government compel anyone to do anything relating to covid? (Not that they should be anyway, of course). Or else it will be ‘guidance’ which the stupid citizens of this country will see as ‘laws’ anyway – so no penalties for not obeying, but woe betide you if you try and live a normal life (pre-covid type) without adhering to the guidance, you opportunities will be severely limited and you will be ostracised by all the covidians out there.
The ‘Vaccine Passports’ must be kept going – and that means more ‘vaccines’ on the way.
Not a lot has really changed, has it? 5-11 kiddies to be injected next, and no-one to stop this from happening.
Except the parents – who could just say NO.
I have never once taken a test throughout this entire shitshow. When I mention this to friends and colleagues they look startled and astonished and can’t quite comprehend why I haven’t. They seem to think it was their civic duty and responsibility and so did it without thinking. One colleague even said to me that he thought it was the law. I kid you not. My company introduced a rule whereby you had to take an LFT twice a week and register the result on the NHS website and show proof of this. I never bothered and nobody ever asked me. Considering that I kept the department running through the height of lockdown(s) because I was the only one prepared to come into work whilst everybody else was furloughed or hiding behind their sofas, I was daring someone from management to challenge me…they would have got both barrels although it would have probably ended up with me being sacked. C’est la vie.
No, me neither. That’s the way I intend it to stay as well. Asymptomatic transmission is a lie. If I have a cold I stay away from people simple.
When I worked in magazine publishing, one colleague thought that it was ‘the law’ that any stock photograph we published of, say, a family or group of people, had to contain at least one effnik. He seriously thought that was the law! Mind you that was about ten years ago – now even I’m beginning to wonder if it’s actually the law when I watch adverts on TV.
As many have said from the day they came in, stop testing and you stop the pandemic so it would appear the government has decided to now end the fake pandemic.
We need to be on our toes, what are they up to next? Many of us have predicted destruction of the fiscal system….
In an effort to get some of our money back we are bulk ordering test kits
The intention is to sell them to Covidians at inflated prices once they become the currency de jour
Nice one😂😂😂
In coming months as the sheeple get withdrawal symptoms, you could sell them for thousands of pounds each, roughly equivalent to one potato or three sheets of Andrex.
Good news. I’d actually stop all free testing, pretty much everywhere apart from hospitals and care homes. Do what we should have done in the first place – protect the vulnerable, everyone else carries on with normal life.
Carrying on with normal life is the cessation of all ‘covid’ tests, the affiliated vaccination programme and all restrictions.
Why are they still testing now, and why are they still jabbing, and forcing jabs on kids?
Another million dollar question, of which there have been so many throughout this shit show.
“But just last week top scientists on Sagewarned against the move to ditch free testing — saying it would “increase anxiety” among the population — particularly the clinically vulnerable.”
This would be the same population that SAGE and co did their utmost to misinform and scare s***less, then?
should send them off to write a report on how this anxiety might deleteriously effect people. then arrest them
Beware of Greek Vets bearing gifts
Albert Bourla – Wikipedia
About bloody time. The whole lot of useless tests
Should be scrapped COMPLETELY
Brits are currently told to get a highly-accurate PCR test after coming into contact with someone with Covid,
Says your Soreaway Sun. It’s as if they know this is a lie but feel compelled to open the article with it anyway.
It’s a giggle I suppose.
Do you need to have had a jab to apply?
No, just a callous attitude towards the vaccine damaged. That will be high on the person specifications.
I’d wear out the “Approved” stamp before they could drag me out of the building.
: how do I apply
Just seen this. Successful applicants for the measly damage award, if already receiving any benefits, the benefits will be taken into account.
What a caring government we have!
https://dailyexpose.uk/2022/02/16/nhs-and-dwp-advertise-job-roles-to-deal-with-vaccine-damage-payments/
I can only look upon this news as an unmitigated “good.” Indeed, it is a perfectly sensible part of returning to normal life.
You don’t need an advanced degree in statistics (or psychology) to understand that if you perform (literally) millions of tests per day, at no marginal cost to the person being tested, that you are going to have both a significant number of positive test results, and an unwarranted share of the national consciousness.
I’m looking forward, very much, to the day when our great national newspapers stop the daily reporting covid-19 figures on the front page, and return that space to football scores and the results of celebrity ballroom dancing competitions. They have roughly equivalent relevance for our individual and national health.
My apologies for referring you to this yet again, but the Guardian website thing is open for comments re covid – ” The Guardian view on axing covid rules…”
https://www.authorea.com/users/455597/articles/552937-innate-immune-suppression-by-sars-cov-2-mrna-vaccinations-the-role-of-g-quadruplexes-exosomes-and-micrornas
I have been waiting for them to open up comments on covid in order to post the above but am banned, so could all and sundry please post it in the comments section.
You will be amused by the response.
It may even convert one or two.
Maybe not though.
‘The lack of adequate sick pay already means that some workers cannot afford to stay home. Problems will be further exacerbated by the proposals to phase out free testing, at least for all but the most vulnerable and for high-risk settings. The better-off will still be able to minimise the risk to their loved ones or co-workers; the poorer will have to take their chances.’
The same low paid workers who have worked and mixed right the way through this shit show. Whilst the middle classes have hidden themselves away working from home. Usual crap from The Guardian.
A counter revolutionary tennis player is interrogated by the state media and denounced
How much more information does this running dog need before he starts to believe?
They are phasing out PCR tests because they know they have always been bogus and that law suits revealing them as the key deception in the plandemic are being filed in many countries.
Too late – we are waking up from the whole nightmare.
I remember the good old days where they rushed out a vaccine for the vulnerable. As Kate Bingham said – ‘this is only for the vulnerable’. It was a conspiracy theory back then that they would give it to everyone including kids.
I thought ‘fair enough – do our vulnerable then do the rest of the world vulnerable if you really want’. When they started coming down the age groups – as it was clear Covid was harmless to most – at no point did I consider getting it. I just thought ‘what a bunch of twats’. Haven’t changed my mind since
“People keep talking about ‘time to vaccinate the whole population’, but that is misguided,” she said. “There’s going to be no vaccination of people under 18. It’s an adult-only vaccine, for people over 50, focusing on health workers and care home workers and the vulnerable.”
https://www.ft.com/content/d2e00128-7889-4d5d-84a3-43e51355a751
how we laughed!
why ‘by the end of the month’? just do it now
is he announcing intentions to see how much the guardian and bbc complain?
The Guardian are already moaning about it.
It’s ALWAYS a few weeks away… carrot + donkey.
My daughter has a massive pile of unused testing kits from school shoved under the stairs, I’m tempted to set up an ebay account to flog them to vaccinated people still living in fear. How much do we think they will go for and would it be better to hang on to them for a bit?
Will certainly be appreciating in value faster than USD.
Good hedge against inflation caused by the testing
You could have a small fortune shoved under your stairs. Don’t ditch the kits yet.
“Brits are currently told to get a highly-accurate PCR test after coming into contact with someone with Covid, but,,,”
Where have they been hiding the highly accurate tests then? LMAO
A court in Germany this week ruled that as long as there is nothing better, despite the PCR’s shortcomings, it is the best we have.
“Chicken entrails declared a superior oracular divination technique to casting runes.”
From a Norwegian friend living near Bergen. “It’s weird to have the virus without being sick. This virus has been so much husteria around for 2 years. Had I not taken the test I wouldn’t have noticed anything. Took test due to a little sore throat yesterday morning but it is gone now. Now I have no symptoms. Norway has just removed all Covid rules. Children can go to school as long as they do not have a fever and no longer need to test themselves. So now Norway is back to being home if you are sick and at school if you are healthy. That’s very good. If adults have no symptoms but test positive they can now go to work if the employer wants you to. So, I’m going back to work.” She also told me that last week at the local school virtually all the children were off “sick” with Covid. At one time there were only three students in her son’s class. Pragmatism has won the day for the Norwegians, as ever. Why can’t Trudeau do the same for the the Canadians?
Not only for Turdeau and Canadians!
We were supposed to fly to Oslo yesterday. Sad we didn’t. Was so happy when they scrapped everything on Saturday.
We just felt we needed warmth and sun right now. So instead we flew to Lisbon. Mask compliance is 100% in the required settings (airports, shops, standing up in cafés and restaurants, sitting or standing on public transport, etc.). I enter these settings barefaced and fancy free, if anyone asks me I take out a secretly pre-snapped mask, and pretend it just snapped as I start to put it on. Almost without exception, the response from the authority figure to my ‘surprised’ face is a wave of the hand, a shrug and “Ah, don’t worry about it.”
The exception so far is having two shopkeepers in different branches of the same supermarket “fight” with me about it. I just turned around and walk out. Bought my milk somewhere else.
Oh, and had an evil glare from a passenger, a posh bitch on the tram who would have suited jackboots.
Love the broken mask excuse! Just as a follow on from my previous comment, my Norwegian friend wrote to me: “Yes, I am glad that we can now return to normal life where we are at home if we are sick, and at school and at work if we are healthy!”
She goes on: “This pandemic has hurt a lot for many. There are very many young people who struggle with great mental difficulties after being isolated from school and studies for a long time. This will be a huge challenge for the country in the future. They struggle to get to work and shool due to mental difficulties.”
And finishes: “This may be a much more serious consequence than what the virus has actually caused.” So there you have it in a nutshell. What has our government, and those around the world, done to us. Just brutal and unwarranted.
What a strange world we live in. A regime that can confiscate peoples assets for refusing to take part in a medical experiment is described as a Liberal Democracy
Has a plant based vaccine been developed, yet?
To produce a plant based vaccine you would first need to develop a plant based monkey
But monkeys eat plants…so there you go.
Well i wonder – now they know that if they terrify the population enough they can do their trials on humans, why bother with the poor monkeys?
If the monkey identifies as a plant, it’s a plant. Only a dangerous right-wing Brexit-voting fashist would deny that self-evident and scientific reality.
They’ve already produced a vaccine-free vaccine.
How about a death free vaccine…… now that would be progress
Lol!
The ‘Vegetarian Butcher’ is working on it currently.