As government says it will merge therapeutics and antiviral taskforces for coronavirus
The government is to continue funding four major Covid-19 surveillance studies for the time being as it set out the next phase of its response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
On 29 March the government laid out a series of next steps for living with Covid-19 once free testing for the general public ends on 1 April.
Under the plans, the government said the Office for National Statistics’ Community Infection Survey would “continue to provide a detailed national surveillance capability in the coming year so the government can respond appropriately to emerging developments such as a new variant of concern or changing levels of population infection”.
Infections in health and care settings will also continue to be monitored through studies including the Vivaldi study for residential care homes, it said, and the Sars-CoV2 Immunity and Reinfection Evaluation (Siren) study in the NHS and Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) surveillance study in primary care.
The announcement follows the health department’s controversial decision to cancel future funding for Imperial College London’s React-1 Covid monitoring study, which uses home testing to track the progress of England’s epidemic, as well as funding for King’s College London’s symptom-tracking Zoe app.
Meanwhile, the government said its Therapeutics Taskforce, which is responsible for the end-to-end provision of treatments for Covid-19, would be merged with the Antivirals Taskforce, which is tasked with identifying the most promising antivirals for patients.
“Thanks to our plan to tackle Covid, we are leading the way in learning to live with the virus. We have made enormous progress but will keep the ability to respond to future threats including potential variants,” said health secretary Sajid Javid.
“Vaccines remain our best defence and we are now offering spring boosters to the elderly, care home residents and the most vulnerable—please come forward to protect yourself, your family and your community.”
Despite ending free universal testing, the government said free tests would continue to be available to help protect specific groups, including those at risk of serious illness from Covid-19, along with NHS and social care staff and those in other high-risk settings.
The government added that it had retained the ability to enable a rapid testing response should it be needed, including a “stockpile of lateral flow tests and the ability to ramp up testing laboratories and delivery channels”.