Minutes:
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Question
This report accompanying the agenda refers to residents of Wokingham, yet many of our key workers are not Wokingham residents. Will these tests be available for both residents and non-residents who are key-workers in our Borough?
Answer
The national testing system run by the Government is available to all who need it. This includes anyone who develops symptoms of Covid 19 and also includes targeted asymptomatic testing of NHS and social care staff and care home residents. In addition, essential workers can apply for priority testing through the Government website and a small amount of testing kits have been supplied to each local school. We are not aiming to replace this system. As anyone who reads the paper or listens to the TV knows, this system is having well publicised capacity problems. What we are doing is purchasing additional spare capacity to deploy in an emergency situation, such as an outbreak, as directed by our Public Health Consultant, for hopefully what would be a short period of time until the national system recovers. It would be wrong of me to rule specific groups in or out of this, as we do not know what those situations will be. This situation is so fluid and fast moving. I would love to be able to tell you where we will be in two weeks’ time but we cannot. So therefore these tests will be managed in situations in Wokingham if we cannot secure enough capacity via the national route first. If there were residents outside of Wokingham that could not get tested and it was critical that they did for the management and health for the people of Wokingham then yes, we would consider it.
What I would say at the moment is that the rate of Covid in Wokingham, the rate per thousand, is around a third of the UK national average. Now the central Government provision, whilst it is limited, is obviously being directed to areas of higher risk, so at the moment basically, if there was an outbreak in an area of higher risk, it is more likely that the Government system is going to be stronger there than it currently is in Wokingham; which is currently a very low risk area. We obviously hope it stays that way.
Supplementary Question:
It is much appreciated that WBC are trying to chart a path through the chaos created by the confusing messages and ineffective action from central Government. I understand that the initial tranche is going to be 500 tests. This does not seem to me to be a very high number. For example, I am a volunteer at the RBH and I live in Wokingham. Would I be eligible for one of these tests should I need one? Or a refuse collector? Looking wider, what roles are you defining as key workers?
Supplementary Answer:
The figure of 500 and the figure of 1,000 from the original commitment was done following quite a bit of study into what we thought consumption would be or could be. But, as I have already said basically, it is very difficult to anticipate the situation, which is fluid and ever changing. We will continue to review going forward where we are and what is going on. All the potential tests, should Executive approve, that we are looking to move forward with, have got a 12 month shelf life so there is plenty of time to get through them, and we hope obviously that we will get near to that level.
In terms of your specific question as to who would be eligible and who would not, what I would say to that at the moment is that is impossible for me to give a strict definition on that right now because the situation is every changing. The judgement would be made basically on:
a) Can the national system cope? Obviously, if it can cope and an appropriate response is being provided, then none of this applies.
b) If it cannot cope, what would any steps that we take for that situation to lower the risk of an outbreak spreading, and control it basically in Wokingham.
Obviously, that is going to depend on the scenario at the time. Now we can all make educated guesses about how we think this is going to play out over the next few months and where the greatest elements of risk are, but no disrespect intended they are educated guesses. We have set up a system in the Council where each situation would be judged by the Public Health Consultant, the Director of Adult Services, senior leadership for the Council, with me and the Leader obviously having oversight of it. So I cannot give you specific criteria today but I hope you understand the reasons why.