UK Edition
Major city-wide and regional lockdowns will be consigned to history under plans to hugely ramp up Covid-19 surveillance testing in order to save the economy.
On Wednesday, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) announced plans to significantly expand its infection survey to 400,000 people in England.
The survey is currently tracking around 28,000 people a fortnight, but infections in the community are now so low that statisticians are not finding enough cases to give local infection rates.
That means the Government has been forced to lock down large areas (see graphic below) even when there are outbreaks only in small parts.
Under the new plans, the ONS will be able to give estimates of infection rates at local authority level, meaning cities such as London or Manchester need never be fully locked down again.
"I certainly think that in cities that will be possible – Manchester or London, which is a region in its own right," said Katherine Kent, the co-lead for Covid-19 Infection Survey analysis at the ONS.
"It's definitely our ambition. We will be increasing our sample size at local authority level – so for example in Manchester at the moment that would cover areas such as Oldham or the City of Manchester or Trafford.
"With a larger sample, we will be quicker to react to potential small changes. Before, we would have to be cautious to say if something has gone up and gone down, and will have much more certainty around that."
Scaling up the project will cost £750 million over two years, but the Government believes that is a worthwhile investment in order to prevent the devastating economic impact of large-scale lockdowns.
"It isn't going to be cheap, and obviously the Government has to consider the cost of the survey, but with the costs for the damage to the economy and the potential loss of lives they've clearly made the decision that this was the right investment," added Ms Kent.
Once expanded, the infection survey will be the country's largest study tracking Covid-19 in the general population and will now include Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The ONS will prioritise ramping up in the north-west of England (see video below) and London in the light of recent upticks in infection rates. Letters have already been sent out to tens of thousands of homes inviting new participants to take part in the survey. Anyone who receives a letter asking them to participate is encouraged to do so.
As well as routine swabbing, one in five people will also be asked to give a blood sample to monitor antibody levels and find out how many people have been infected in the past.
Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, said: "This country now has the capacity to test for coronavirus on an unprecedented scale, and this ONS survey will be a crucial part of this work, improving our understanding of the rate of infection in the population and how many people have antibodies.
"This will allow us to further narrow down the areas potentially affected by local outbreaks and continue our fight to curb the spread ahead of winter."
The ONS has been publishing infection surveillance findings for the last few months, but with the virus now at such low levels in the community they are spotting around only 50 cases each week, making it impossible to tease out regional variations.
The new survey will also start monitoring whether people are able to get reinfected.
Professor Sarah Walker, of the University of Oxford, the chief investigator and academic lead for the Covid-19 Infection Survey, said: "We're following the same people over time and that will allow us to answer critically important questions, such as 'if I've had it, can I get it again?'
"Ramping up will be critically important as we head towards winter. The great news is infection rates are really, really low.
"The point of the scale-up is not to demonstrate that the rate of infection is tiny. The point of the scale-up is so that if we have a problem in October we are not caught unawares. Where we are currently nationally we will then be regionally, and we should be able to do sub-regionally."