2020-10-25: News Headlines

Bernard Freudenthal (2020-10-24). [Correspondence] Misuse of SARS-CoV-2 testing in symptomatic health-care staff in the UK. thelancet.com An initiative to screen asymptomatic health-care workers for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was timely and logical,1 and contrasted markedly with the UK Government's testing strategy of National Health Service (NHS) staff during the epidemic. The NHS staff testing policy was only to test symptomatic staff, precisely to reduce absenteeism by encouraging staff with negative results back to work, thus intentionally reducing their time in self-isolation. The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Matt Hancock, himself stated that "we want to get [NHS staff absences] down, and the…