jerry thinks. we dare to ask. welcome to the alex salmond sure what we examine the performance of covert 19 test interest systems across the u.k. and compared it with a plan used in the tiny thing to islands 6 months into the pandemic and criticism is still widespread on the failings of testing trees that have been many false

dawns. back in march prime minister boris johnson hailed a coup which unto body chess as a game changer in the battle against a deadly virus millions of tests were purchased and subsequently found to be totally useless even no approved antibody tests are not to be able to the general population unless they buy their own private yet another game changer in the testing regime was to be the contact tracing out launched by english hung called amid great fun fare as a trial in the isle of wight in me it was subsequently abundant in june and now a new up has been launched on the same island and the london borough of new and criticism still continues on the results of the present manual system in england with the guardian reporting last week that the trysting results were being cut by delays and home test failures meanwhile the scottish press last week was full of stories of anxious people seeking a local test and instead being referred to testing centers in england or northern ireland so why is it the 10 the u.k.

the country which pioneered community health protection from infectious diseases in the 19th century it has been so it's a focal to operate effectively in the 21st today we ask health expert dr khan kanya what on earth has been going on then return in contrast to the example of effective testing trees not in the far east asia but off far northern shores where the tiny fatal islands of concord covert once while on their way to doing it again and so what lessons can be learned from our tiny island the words all that later in the show but 1st over to alex with your tweets messages and e-mails on last week's show on the end of the american era. well lots and lots of comments this week on no wade davis an interview and that was about his article in the rolling stone magazine article that went viral for the 1st couple of girls from watching from cambodia says thanks for the great show wolf thanks for writing and remove them jeff wait

says the wade davis article i read the article is spot on and leasehold an interesting comment about the end of the american which was the argument that we davis was putting forward she says as regards the u.s.c. it's logical to assume that china would have taken to its historical dominance soon without bad the genocide of the guards no democracy persecution of christians massive environmental humanitarian disasters over the years expansionism all good keeping on stonily huge population and rising living standards a high level of peace for law and order a vast capability to address him federal g. environmental issues officially who knows says louise we have all that will lead to jacqueline says unemployment will overtake covered as a killer really says a good interview allowing comments and opinions to be expressed and yvonne writing from the comfort of a kenyan house appreciates the global issues a tackle didn't show john farben says they speak about america don't deserve to be

leaders of the free world they gave up that right years ago in english says america's imploding trump was the beginning of the end for them and patricia says not just america the whole world will never be the same again this is just the beginning side they have the strength exactly the opposite point if she sticks up for the american press that don't belong say the 1st street from persuade every politician looks like incompetent idiots he created 3000000 jobs in june in the middle of the pandemic well thanks hello it's always good to get a country point of view back that has been a doctor about it can kind of exeter medical school i think were 20 years experience in. disease control he worked as a consultant in communicable disease control start a tease on public health england agency which is now being blamed by u.k. government ministers for the failure of test entries he is in conversation with alex. if huge experience and infectious disease control

can you tell me why is it that in the united kingdom the country which 180 years ago pioneer public health legislation they're all for whom this is a finding so difficult to get a grip on coronavirus i think this is a example of how low we have sunk with regards to both our national health service and our investment in public out i mean i am one of those persons who has been in public health for all what 20 years and gradually slowly drip by drip we have. made redundant experts we have disinvested in it we sent most of probably out to local authorities and then the local authorities reduce the numbers further with that and in the creation from how the protection agency was a very good idea to public health england we have diluted our strength and energies and this is the price we are paying today it is very very elemental very

unfortunate but let's look at the english experience 1st ministers seem to be blaming public health england they say they're going to get scrap the organization that is that a fair criticism no i disagree i disagree and in the middle of a pandemic to cancel the very organization that they have secular state for health is in charge of asks me to ask the question if probably cull england isn't fit for purpose the head of the public health england eventually is the 2nd state for health and social care do so you know those are the questions to ask also furthermore this is the wherry painful bit when the kind of mix starkey and of course we could not do the test and trace because we were under-resourced and we didn't have the capability to do it but we went ahead and rested as time worrying amount in testing and contact raising. by products of lies if that

same money had been allocated to public health in berlin and told. do it get on with it create create a system nation lite i think really been done and it could have been done well for some reason since march public health england was bypass you're right in saying that the testing was slow to get started there was slow in getting the capability but it's plenty of testing in the u.k. going or no relative to other countries so why is there still a problem when there's a capability of testing it is that the tracing end of the of the system that's failing or. there's failures across all facets unfortunately and it is so painful to note because the united kingdom is an advanced country it has a lot of clever people in place and considering we have the armament we have the clever people we have the logistics we have everything in price we go ahead and in went a centralized system from the beginning when actually what we could out and we can

do we should be doing is enabling local testing local orator is energized to set at the testing and we take that task and we do it locally with process it locally and we communicate the results locally because we're already set up to communicate this result here is one ridiculous item about it we set up a new organ testing regime and contact tracing will as well and they can communicate easily seamlessly with our g.p.s. and patients and others now who are in the test results invention when they're conducted are not communicated to the people that matter and we had the systems so why not use the systems instead of create one in the middle of a pandemic so how important is local knowledge and local delivery and running an effect of testim tracing regime absolutely crucial it won't work otherwise and i

have been banging on about this fall ever since it was created you need central assistance central support but locally deliver all of them are networked with each other and they not alive the line and they work on these things every day on other illnesses and other outbreaks and then suddenly for the biggest are now make that we've seen they're not incrementally in lock it's ridiculous for office that this is a condition of puts the there's no cure at the present form. but we thought can this is like that in the past of the diseases footsore were no cure for and we have public health prevention methods how could the whole body of knowledge and understanding be lost it is not lost it's just that we're not using it properly we've got experts locally nationally and international experts in our country and

for whatever reason which is hard to understand and explain there has been a narrow focus from the experts advising the government the experts advising the government if you look at their make up a lot of them world market lawyers and scientists social scientists but very few very very few if any well hands on outbreak specialists i didn't see the name of anyone who has actually hands on outbreak of any sons locally out of national interest no one they will all claim we have been involved in outbreaks my question is how many of you have actually led on a large equal i operate a large salmonella outbreak or any of that in the last few years now well in the past this is like tuberculosis or smallpox i was that dumb there were the lovely cats of things like that that i was tested tracing doesn't these great communicable

diseases of the past so with respect to the are you better close is we still do with the tried and trusted. identify the patient get to know the patient well get underneath the skin of the patient as a calm my students you've got to understand your patient having understood your patient you know then on earth from who their contacts are we had with a grin who do this socialize wait where do they work who do they go out with their social network in other words you're almost be friending the patient. and then you send out your army of colleagues to pull in all those contacts of that case and you can do that rightly if you know the law of the land and the same applies which we used to do when smallpox was here we used to test and we used to trace and when people floundering and there was something very complicated it i

remember myself calling my senior colleagues in colander lance and this is a little bit complicated can we have a discussion and somehow we let go of all that expertise that we were always high. we're told that a new up might be the magic bullet the support how do you rate these these ups the one that was try the new one which is also being tried that they were white and they'll swear how do you rate them as a tool and could they save the day. not on their own no way they are a additional aid to contact tracing they are not on their own. magic bullet that we are led to believe so you really need that local import as well as that application if and when it works now with respect to the application again i remember saying it clearly that a centralized application will have

a lot of people will not adhere to wanting that application because you're collecting too much personal data centrally and google plus apple for the 1st time ever joined out to create a decentralized application and i again and back will why don't we just use something that world explosive have developed why go around developing your own when you can use what arlen has got they've got a very good up nation also running why are we insisting on making our own dr pratt county a would you say actually possible to contain this virus while others might way from and pubs. open many people are arguing that these 2 things are incompatible you can't in the 100 contain the virus and not the other hand provide the a setting for a virus more clearly fry than be a heightened infectious that you are not compatible it's as simple as that we are killing ourselves by saying on the one hand open up the cows the restaurants the

businesses and life as normal and on the other hand we've got the wires inside you nation if we had adopted the new zealand style approach of we wish to eliminate it hard and fast and early as soon as it appeared we would be in a better position similarly we had a smaller countries tiny tiny tiny country countries like bear items so they also have a 0 coleridge policy which is we don't want to live with any case. and new zealand i'm not going to say way so in answer to your question the 2 are not compatible what we have to do is aim for we wish to eliminate it from britain and if you're going to eliminate it there will be some hard things to do i'm 100 you have to contain it but if you carry on with you carry on with business as normal open up

the parts and continue with interactions with fellow human beings then i'm afraid it is not possible to also say we are in control that drive us after the break but i continue this discussion with thought for part of the universe to have a look in detail at these international examples. so what we've got to do is identify the threats that we have it's crazy confront cation let it be an arms race in this on off and spearing dramatic development only really i'm going to resist i don't see how that strategy will be successful very critical time time to sit down and talk. welcome back alex is in conversation with dr bot it can kanya about the problems being experienced with operating an effective test interesting system on corporate across the u.k.

. dr pratt honey let's look at the detail of these international examples of some countries been able to the level of some countries of struggle. the countries that took early decisive actions have done a great job let's start with south korea so when things happen in china and the cases started to appear in south korea they unleashed and arming our huge army of testers and contact races and they had the compliance of population they had the will of the government and the had the armaments ready the testers and the conduct raises and they might if you look at the graph it is amazing how they just managed to flatten it quickly another example poor countries where. similar things and the brutal things a little drop new zealand is a marvelous example of where it took early decisive actions in saying we will

import 0 coli in our country so they grew a net around the country and they they suppressed the case numbers heart and fast and early and then got a result the united kingdom game up the truth is we gave up sometime in march who say containment is not not on the possible and now in september we are still trying to contain seoul we gave up really and even germany did a wonderful job in europe they had a good policy of testing. contact tracing and better still now well monitoring the our patient at home and when they found that their patients were should we say showing more signs of illness the compliment out to hospital only and as a result of taking their patients to hospital early they had

a much lower that right of course they didn't make the huge mistake of also introducing infections in the residential homes which really mean i'm getting a doctor for a kind of a final question well let's just say i have the power of to appoint you as the new site to state for health but i'd be strongly tempted to do so but let's say. you were the new broom which was coming and to sweep clean what would be your your 4 c. is a fraction to get this virus and infection under control i would bring together all my local networks we already have existing experts locally and i would want to invest in my new public how england rather than create new systems thought about how they are of actual universe to thank you so much for joining me on the alexander show. thank you so problems still a bind across the u.k. and the contrast is often drawn with more effective systems of disease control in

asia however much closer to home that is an example of a tiny country which has tackled the community transmission of covert 1000 not once but twice alex is joined by 2 people instrumental in the success story christina half a same piece and then as christiane said head of department in researcher at the feet of the spirit and veterinary authority christina hospice and dr christensen welcome to the examine show. thank you very much. because they know that when we last spoke in the program the fearless had a stablished a virus free status in got a hold of the few cases you had the new monies to plant them but since then the been some plus those of reimagines the in the fade away alan's hope you dealt with these yes the parents were mown the 1st nations in the world to become 1003 and we didn't have a positive case for more than 3 months actually but unfortunately here in august we

had a new outbreak and it's has been quite a big outbreak but we have handled it by using the tool that we also used back in march with mass test think tracing and 1000 people so at the moment it seems like we have the situation under control dr christiane son of the man who suggested to the feelies authorities what let's use the sama labatt it is to give us the testing capacity to to test a substantial part of our population what are you confident the facility would what of this new virus is speed up the outer order that was 'd established to get us or go bad that's maybe. 5 to track viruses and athletics out on egg metaphor out of oratory it doesn't matter if the cost of the scripts up calls from the jumps off or it calls from the trope of person the comic genius

actually it's pretty much the same in our hands you know mccain we have some change to tweak some some virus or if human minds. he can switch between those different assets so that's like using the not to resources of the of the pharaohs to deploy to protect the human population that would give you a capacity to test the a huge proportion. the relatively small families population at the moment we are we have to be chilled out about the private company but it would seem to happen and actually we can do up to 45 percent of the nation and if you work for all of these. capacity at the moment so and so we can't pass the high proportion of the various population that's also one of the success that we have. been able to to combat this outbreak so. efficiently it's not over yet because there are still

process out there that they had dropped out cost job in the last couple of days week. staff was getting people tested is only one part of the story you've then got to contain the renewed clusters of what's the family's approach being 2 to tracing and to and to isolation of the potential contacts yes you're right alexis testing is one thing but tracing is just as important if you want to stop an 8 hour break so all the people who have tested positive or. had you can say interviews with our health authorities and together they have found out where have they been the last couple of days which people could they have been contact with and there already is have a contact at all the people who have been in contact with people who tested positive

and put them into 2 weeks quarantine. because even though people may test negative after a few days they may test positive so tracing people who are been in contact with people who are infected and putting them into 2 weeks pointing is why at all and i could add that the last couple of days most of the new cases have been people that already were in quarantine so this just tells us how important this not just to test but also to trace and to put people into quarantine if you really want to start on the outbreak and what if you'll learn the rest of the half of a hoe the infection got back into the field it was after limited to in their late part of the year how did these clusters we're mad was that the tumors are more of the fishing community or how did they get back into the iowans we knew that when we chose to be open our borders back in mid june that it was a risk but we chose to test all travelers who have arrived in the fire lines and

that has a protected us until august it seems that one traveler has tested negative at the airport. but still has been positive after a couple of days and unfortunately that person has been able to infect others looking at the fearless experience of the sheer what does a small country like the fearless have to teach a large of countries who have struggled much much more with the virus and knew how what were you to experience could be applied to to the larger countries of the world and i think that you have to act locally and you have to give at the local communities and the 3rd tools too to find a solution start fit to those areas. and for example in scotland it will be very good if the islands that have their strategies open it comes to acting on if there is

a new outbreak but also when it comes to reopening the islands because things can be so very different from for example edinburgh to to the shetland islands what is the right thing to do and for us it's spent why go to have our own strategy and have our own tools also or oratory our skill staff and to be able to ask because if we were to. after in the same way as for example denmark or if we had to send our all our testing material to a brought it would take days before we got the results and we would not be able to contain the wires like we had in the so so it's important that you can have a strategy that fits locally definitely so the message from the fair was as local it to confront a global danger krystyna half was thought of christiane some thank you so much for

joining me on the all examined show. thank you. at least in the western world the united kingdom is the home of public health legislation to meet the challenges of infectious disease in overcrowded cities of the industrial revolution the 1st public health legislation was passed in 840 s. to tackle the deadly conditions of cholera yellow fever and sugar cube says these are early campaigners realized that prevention business a city where there was no cure and the public health act was passed by the liberal government of lord john russell where there was a cure for various deadly conditions like smallpox vaccination was made compulsory in 851 without hesitation public health 2nd to none and with still largely integrated tell services it is astonishing that the u.k. has not better prepared to meet the admittedly tough challenges of calling a virus on the control of the cool with disease scotland wales and ireland to fared somewhat better than england but not by much the reality is all of the home nations

have struggled the tiny pharaoh's give us a clue as to why if it exists public health systems have always been delivered look leigh and that key community knowledge is the secret to stamping out the embers of any clusters if the fatal system had been run from copenhagen denmark it would not to be an effective. the move to centralize ation a public health organization across the u.k. that may not have helped in the development of a rapid response to corona 5 infectious disease control local information and the speed of response which comes with it is more valuable than that provided by any app however you spoke of functioning on line 2 would be perhaps in public health the key to success is to look to face a global challenge but for now i have from alex myself and all that the show is good by stacy and we hope to see you all again next week.

during the vietnam war u.s. forces are also box neighbor unless there was a secret war. and for years the american people did not know. until our so much that is officially the most heavily bombed country per capita. human history millions of unexploded bombs still in danger lives in this small agricultural country jordyn would have been going on to another topic then even today kids in laos fall victim to bombs dropped decades ago is the us making amends for that

tragedy in laos what help do the people need in that little land on mars. said she's trying to make sure that the british at the middle of it will. stop question was so here she then it is he's a cia which. i know what you mean and i must get your car moment in there for sure i. want to talk to you so if you're my it's your bonus for should be. it's a mistake as the words are still with them or with theirs they seem to be arguable that it's a studio actually the person with the wrong or should stop them spinning. this

hour's headlines stories russia's foreign ministry cold's all i'm german and over whatever information the alleged poisoning of alexei navalny softer berlin's claim on wednesday about the russian opposition figure was targeted with a chemical nerve agent. if there was any data he would work with that there is no data there are only statements amounting to megaphone diplomacy. the usa will not join an international effort to develop a good 19 vaccine because it doesn't want to be constrained by the world health organization.