Professor Mark Ferguson:

I thank the Deputy. The answer is "Yes, we should act immediately." In regard to the Deputy's other question, in the United Kingdom the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, SAGE, group produced a paper, which is available on the gov.uk website at SAGEminutes, in which it modelled the effects of serial testing of travellers coming into the country and showed that that was as effective as quarantine. What does this mean? It means that when a traveller comes into a country, he or she is issued with a barcoded rapid antigen test. The barcoding is unique and there will be a record of to whom, say, ten tests are given. Those individuals test themselves daily, take a photograph of the barcode and the test result and then upload it to an IT system, which records that a person has done a test and it is negative. That person can then go about his or her business. If a person does not turn in a test - a person might forget to do it or deliberately not do it - he or she is issued with an automated reminder to do it. If the person repeatedly does not do the test, as the IT system has recorded when that person entered the country, as well as his or her telephone number, contact details and so on, somebody will pay him or her a visit to find out what is going on. That was modelled for SAGE and shown to be as effective in isolating infectious individuals as quarantine, either at home or in a hotel situation. It is my understanding that the UK is now piloting that at present.

Our recommendation was about essential workers coming into the country. These would be people coming in to fix a piece of equipment, to carry out a specific operation on a patient or to treat somebody. It would also include people coming here to attend a funeral. These are all situations in which it would difficult to quarantine people because they have to act immediately. We are suggesting that in those situations, serial rapid testing could be used but tests would need to be barcoded and an IT system is required as well. This could then used in the longer term. This is contained in the body of the report, not the recommendations. In the longer term, when more people are vaccinated in, maybe, a few months' time, this might be something for a number of people coming into the country. Consideration could be given to giving it to everybody on an aeroplane. The most important thing to remember is that numbers become important. If most people do it, we are far better off than having a small number of people doing something else.