Based on the reports from Iceland health departments need to mail out tests for Covid 19 to everyone … a bit like the Australian test for bowel cancer. People then all mail back the swab and they test it. They develop then and accurate database using the addresses of those returning the test … it shouldn’t be hard to develop maps of hot spots based on addresses of the recipients of the test. They can also map where people are likely to be going: supermarkets, schools, etcetera.
Wide scale testing and then lockdown for 2 weeks or so seems to be the key.
As countries around the world scramble to fight back the spread of the coronavirus, Iceland is doing things a little differently from the rest — and the approach could have a much larger impact on our understanding of the virus.
The small island nation of 364,000 is carrying out large-scale testing among its general population, making it the latest country to put aggressive testing at the heart of its fight against the pandemic.
But — crucially — the testing also includes people who show no symptoms of the disease.
Iceland’s government said it has so far tested a higher proportion of its citizens than anywhere else in the world.
The number of individuals tested by the country’s health authorities and the biotechnology firm deCode Genetics — 3,787 — roughly translates to 10,405 per million, which compares to about 5,203 in South Korea, 2478 in Italy, and 764 in the UK.
Not much chance of this happening in Australia where non(e) of the Ruby Princess passengers were tested even though some were infected because as Prof. Sharon Lewin said on Q&A “we need to get the biggest bang for our buck”. So we do not have enough testing kits in Australia so we cannot squander them!
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I’m in favour of mail-out testing kits or alternatively setting up drive through testing in much the same way people are breathalysed.