Living on Plague Island

In my frustration I fired off a letter to Jenny Harries. I am not holding my breath for a useful response but at least it makes me feel better ….

25 April 2023

Dear Dr Jenny Harries 

Covid-19 Infection Survey

I am writing regarding the UK Health Security Agency’s decision to pause the ONS Covid-19 infection survey. My husband is clinically vulnerable and as a consequence we have been semi shielding since February 2020. I don’t know how far you recognise how important the data from the infection survey was in allowing us to make informed decisions about everyday activities. Since the survey was paused we now feel we are flying blind and are far less likely to take risks on a day to day basis. This includes weighting up the risks of attending medical appointments, meeting people in well ventilated settings, going out volunteering etc.

The consequences of pausing the survey have of course been exacerbated by the abolition of other data sources. The ONS dashboard has become of limited value for estimating the prevalence of Covid since required testing for COVID via a PCR test was scrapped, and more recently, hospitals are no longer required to test and record whether patients are positive for Covid. The dashboard does continue to record one measure of the number of deaths due to Covid, but tracking deaths is hardly the kind of early warning monitoring system that is required.

In a letter to participants ONS said that ‘we must now consider how we can make COVID-19 and Long COVID surveillance proportionate and balanced alongside emerging healthcare priorities’. And ‘UKHSA will confirm details of any new surveillance surveys that continue beyond 31 March 2023 in due course’.

We really do need an urgent update as more than a month has passed since the infection survey was paused. You may well think that the necessary data could be collected in a more cost effective way? However, what seems extraordinary to me is that the infection  survey should be dropped before plans for any new data collection mechanism were put in place on such an important issue. We really do need to see your plans without further delay.

It is even more extraordinary that you have chosen to do this at a time when the virus is acknowledged to be unstable, and new, potentially highly transmissible and vaccine evasive variants, including Arcturus, are known to have reached the UK shores, the wider health implications of Covid-19 are becoming better understood and more alarming by the day and long Covid is a continuing problem with wider implications for the labour market and economy as well as for individuals and health services. 

I would be grateful for an early reply setting out your detailed plans for providing the data that is crucial to clinically vulnerable people and others trying to live their lives in as safe and healthy way as possible, to heath service planners and providers, and to policy makers who need to be able to understand and predict future levels of Covid-19 infections. 

Yours sincerely 

Gillian Smith