100,000 Covid tests per week should be routine, says DCU professor

Testing in high-risk workplaces was suspended this week after over 20,000 people were referred by their GPs on Monday and Tuesday.

A public health expert says the health service should be doing 100,000 Covid-19 tests a week as a matter of routine not as its absolute maximum.

Testing in high-risk workplaces was suspended this week after over 20,000 people were referred by their GPs on Monday and Tuesday.

There were fears that if the number of referrals for tests continued to rise, the system would reach its capacity for 100,000 tests a week very quickly.

It comes as 196 more people tested positive for the virus - 107 of them in Dublin alone.

Anthony Staines, Professor of Health Systems at DCU says officials should not be relying on medical scientists working overtime for 100,000 tests a week.

"I think we should be able to do 100,000-125,000 test a week every week. That should be the base throughput of our system.

"We are not able to do 100,000 tests a week without extraordinary strain and effort.

"We are going to need to be doing that for at least several months, maybe a year, maybe 18 months depending on how long it takes for a vaccine."

Prof Staines said the hospital voluntary staff have done extraordinary work but there is not enough of them.

He said that although it will be expensive there needs to be a serious increase.

"This is a virus that is costing us a billion a month or more.

"It is well worth investing some tens of millions in proper testing, more staffing, more machines."

Associate Professor in the School of Biochemistry and Immunology at Trinity College Dublin Tomás Ryan says we need to make the most of testing.

"Your testing capacity should not be a target, it should be a daily reality.

"If we have a testing capacity of 15,000 test today then we should be doing around 15,000 tests a day for whatever purpose. We can make use of it."