Coronavirus: Tony Blair says 'Herculean' effort needed to mass-produce testing kits

Governments must urgently mobilise to mass-produce Covid-19 tests by emulating technological breakthroughs by the countries that have responded most effectively to the pandemic, according to the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. In a series of papers and reports this week, the institute said it is only through the application of technology and innovation that countries can overcome the challenges presented by rapidly testing a large percentage of their populations to fight the coronavirus. A three-pronged approach should be adopted in which technology, engineering and manufacturing capacity was redirected towards mass production of rapid tests; digital tools should be developed to support community testing and prioritise who should be tested; and private-sector companies should be leveraged to deliver tests to households. Feted as the “gold-standard” was South Korea, where phone booths are being used to allow medical professionals on the opposite side of a glass wall to administer tests via a handset, and a smartphone app providing details of the virus’s spread is enabling drive-through testing to be set up by roadsides in hotspots. Mr Blair, the former British prime minister, said in the foreword to a report released on Monday that the effort required to secure mass-scale production was “Herculean”, likening it to the mobilisation of industry during the Second World War. He also described as "unrealistic" the concept of so-called herd immunity, which proponents say would give the general population protection against the pandemic. “I do not see a way out of this crisis without mass testing and the development of a clear exit strategy involving testing and tracing, together with innovations in treatment and the use of technology,” he said. “The coronavirus dilemma is simply expressed: the disease is more serious than flu. Its lethality may be anything up to 10 times more. Therefore, we cannot let it ‘run through the herd’." Britain's Health Minister Matt Hancock recently set a target of 100,000 tests a day by the end of the month but faces considerable scepticism that this can be achieved. There are fears that the available home tests are not accurate enough, with even Mr Hancock saying he has not yet seen one that works well. Prof Sir John Bell, Regius professor of medicine at the University of Oxford and government adviser on life sciences, said creating home test kits is "not easy". "Sadly, the tests we have looked at to date have not performed well," Prof Bell said, and this was a problem experienced elsewhere, including in Germany and Spain. The push to speed up testing has led to calls for greater international co-ordination. The UK Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee has argued that multilateral organisations, such as the World Health Organisation, are failing to achieve the international cohesion that is needed to save lives. It called for a "G20 for Public Health" that would enable better co-operation between researchers and allow the sharing of health data. "The only way we can overcome a global crisis on the scale of coronavirus is by working together as a global community,” said Tom Tugendhat, the chairman of the committee. “Our best weapons against this virus are science, evidence and co-operation. “This may seem obvious to most, yet instead of sharing the information needed to help tackle the pandemic, some of the most powerful countries in the world have actively tried to suppress and manipulate it.” UK Foreign Minister Dominic Raab said that Nato should be at the forefront of work to improve the resilience of vulnerable countries and co-operation to develop a vaccine.

Coronavirus: Tony Blair says 'Herculean' effort needed to mass-produce testing kits

But experts give warning that instant tests are not good enough and will take time to make