The Times - UK (2022-01-03)

the times | Monday January 3 2022 2GM 9

News

and all that pushing... stock around.

Obviously that makes more sense

[than] having just one wholesaler.’ I

never got a response back.”

Every pharmacy can place a daily

order for a single carton, containing

about 55 packs, each with seven tests,

but high demand has led many places to

run out within hours of delivery. Some

pharmacies reported patchy and incon-

sistent deliveries even before Christ-

mas, and staff have been abused by

customers when there are no tests.

Last week Alliance wrote on its web-

site that there could be “some service

disruption across the Alliance Health-

care network” because of Covid-relat-

ed absence.

An update on the website of the

Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating

Committee, which represents NHS

pharmacy contractors, said that 2.5 mil-

lion tests had been delivered to Alliance

Healthcare on December 24, but were

bulgaria

Bulgaria has detected its first 12 cases

of the Omicron variant. “We have

confirmed the new variant in samples

from 12 people,” Angel Kunchev, the

chief health inspector, said.

World update

Global cases

289,279,

Global deaths

5,440,

Countries reporting most deaths

Most new cases

US

Brazil

India

Russia

Mexico

Peru

UK

Indonesia

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Data supplied by Johns Hopkins University. US data fluctuates because of irregular reporting by different states. Figures as of 6pm

yesterday. Sources: UK government, Our World in Data, selected countries

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

141,

825,

219,

115,

36,

27,

23,

619,

481,

303,

299,

202,

148,

Deaths per million population

Rank Now Jan 31

1, 234

1,29 9

1 , 431

1 ,

1, 367

797

1 , 523

1 , 225

949

836

1 , 048

1 , 057

1,

1,4 60

1 , 555

6,

4,

4,

4,

3,

3,

3,

3,

3,

3,

2,

2,

2,

2,

2,

Peru

Bulgaria

Bosnia & Herz.

Hungary

N. Macedonia

Georgia

Czech Rep

Croatia

Romania

Slovakia

Brazil

Argentina

US

Italy

UK

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

10

11

15

19

25

26

( 16 )

( 13 )

( 7 )

( 14 )

( 10 )

( 40 )

( 5 )

( 17 )

( 31 )

(37)

( 24 )

( 23 )

(11)

( 6 )

144,096 (^4 )

137,

60,

France

Italy

UK

US

Australia

Turkey

India

Portugal

Mayor orders

riot police

to break up

Dutch protest

More questions are being asked about

the government’s strategy for distribut-

ing lateral flow tests after it emerged

that the sole distributor to pharmacies

closed for four days shortly after it

received 2.5 million tests.

Alliance Healthcare, from whom

pharmacies receive LFTs to hand out to

members of the public who come in

with codes, took delivery of the tests on

Christmas Eve and then shut.

A government source said last week

that shortages in independent pharma-

cies was a result of deliveries having

“closed down for Christmas”.

Wes Streeting, the shadow health

secretary, said: “Why on earth did the

government not prepare for this and

ensure alternative options for delivery

were secured? The government has

been asleep at the wheel when it comes

to England’s supply of Covid tests.”

Pharmacists have also said that

allowing more than one company to

deliver the tests would have built more

resilience into the system.

Leyla Hannbeck, chief executive of

the Association of Independent Multi-

ple Pharmacies, said increased demand

after people were told they could leave

Covid isolation early with negative

tests should have been foreseen, and

said she was hoping supplies would

improve when demand was higher as

children return to schools.

Hannbeck said: “Two or three weeks

ago, I wrote to the UK Health Security

Agency (UKHSA), and I said to them,

‘Look, demand is getting really high

and we are getting bombarded by

requests about this. You have only

given it to one wholesaler to deliver,

which obviously makes it difficult

[compared with] if you have several

people involved; several depots, ware-

houses around the country, and vans

News

classes, head teachers are told

Distributor got 2.5m tests

... then shut for four days

not available for delivery until Decem-

ber 29 after a “planned Christmas

break”. The stock represented about

6,000 cartons of tests.

Thorrun Govind, chairwoman of the

Royal Pharmaceutical Society in

England, said that the system seemed

“a bit haphazard”, but urged people to

be patient and not give up if tests were

not immediately available.

An Alliance Healthcare UK spokes-

man confirmed the closure between

December 25 and 28, and said that dis-

tribution had resumed on December 29

“when the majority of community

pharmacies reopened”.

He said: “Since the start of the Phar-

macy Collect scheme, Alliance Health-

care UK has distributed over 280 mil-

lion lateral flow tests to community

pharmacies across the UK. We distrib-

uted more than two million lateral flow

tests on Christmas Eve to support a

number of community pharmacies that

remained open over Christmas Bank

Holiday and where stock was available.

“We continue to distribute around

two million lateral flow tests daily from

stock made available to us from UKH-

SA.” A spokeswoman for the UKHSA

said: “The UK’s testing programme is

the biggest in Europe with almost

400 million tests carried out since the

start of the pandemic.

“We are delivering record numbers of

lateral flow tests to pharmacies across

the country, with almost eight million

test kits being made available to phar-

macies between 29 December and New

Year’s Eve.”

She added that delivery capacity for

home tests had been “doubled to

900,000 PCR and LFT test kits a day”

and said people unable to get the tests

they needed from the government

website should check every few hours

“as more PCR and LFT tests become

available every day”.

Kat Lay, Henry Zeffman

How Britain compares

Percentage of population who have

received at least one vaccine dose

(total doses administered in

brackets)

Daily*

(Jan 01)

First dose

71

Boosters

(Jan 01)

979

Second

47.4m

Second

68

Total

33.9m

First dose

51.8m

People

vaccinated

99.0% (22.4m) in UK

90.3% (19.4m)

86.2% (1.1m)

84.8% (86.2m)

83.4% (68.8m)

80.1% (111.2m)

79.3% (42.6m)

78.3% (123.6m)

76.2% (133.1m)

Figures as of 6pm yesterday

Source: Our World in Data (latest figures available) and

gov.uk. Note: Selected countries. *Daily vaccinations data

only include Northern Ireland figures

UAE

Portugal

Malta

Spain

Canada

Italy

Australia

France

UK

france

Isolation rules will be relaxed today to

try to ease their effect on society.

People must still respect protective

measures and take regular tests,

Olivier Véran, health minister, said.

netherlands

Riot police broke up a crowd of

several thousand people who had

gathered in Museum Square,

Amsterdam, to protest at lockdown

measures and vaccinations. Femke

Halsema, the mayor, gave police

emergency powers. The country went

into a sudden lockdown two weeks

ago, with the closure of all but

essential stores, as well as restaurants,

gyms and museums, until January 14.

germany

Karl Lauterbach, the health minister,

said he was “very, very concerned”

about the 3.1 million Germans aged

over 60 who remain unvaccinated

as the latest variant spreads. He

warned that Omicron’s relative

mildness was “not the all-clear for

older people who have not been

West End was crowded despite fears shoppers are staying away from city centres vaccinated”.

GUY BELL/SHUTTERSTOCK