Pulse magazine has reported that GP practices will be able to opt in to offering self-administered Covid-19 swab testing for symptomatic patients, practice staff and members and their households. As we have a designated Covid-19 Hub for symptomatic patients in Reading this is not likely to be relevant to us, but could be valuable in more rural and remote areas.

Government has mandated local authorities to locate and communicate with those Covid confirmed people and their contacts that the national system has not been able to reach. As a result Reading Public health has assembled a team of contact tracers who will start work before the end of October. This was revealed incidentally in a discussion of Reading Borough Council's risk register, It is at 1 hour and 39 minutes into the meeting whose recording can be found here.

Indepedent SAGE on 30th October cited this graph on the ineffectiveness of the "NHS" test, trace, isolate and support system.

Reading's Public Health Consultant, David Munday, has recorded a message about Tier 4 for all residents of Reading . .... Here is an earlier message on moving from lockdown into tier two. and here is his first recorded message .

The Independent scientific advisory body Independent SAGE, convened by former Chief Scientific Adviser Sir David King, has proposed a six-week plan for England to control the coronavirus (see the indie_SAGE youtube channel.) The plan proposes a short "Circuit Breaker" of 2 to 3 weeks ( as advised by official SAGE) including: