Thread by @HsiaoMarvin

So there is a point to this seemingly flippant poll. As a country, we have spent at least R8.5 billion in (essentially unbudgeted health expenditure) in Covid testing.

https://twitter.com/HsiaoMarvin/status/1436307676141662209

How much more money do we have to pay the shareholders of these big first world diagnostic test companies. 2/n

Now if testing and tracing works in South Africa as an intervention to contain #covid19 then sure we can see this as an investment. This was the case in March 2020.

Well this is no longer the case. I’m pretty sure in the list of interventions to reduce #SARSCoV2 infection, test and trace currently is pretty low down in terms of effectiveness and cost effectiveness in South Africa 4/n

For one we have #vaccines which in the history of public health and medicine, the number 1 cost effective intervention. I’m pretty sure the number 2 and 3 on the list are not even close 5/n

And to add to this, did anyone ask the people whether we want to spend OUR money this way? Many people who are suffering from Covid in it wide disease spectrum would rather have the money in these tough times 6/n

So I don’t know exact who need to hear this, likely as many people as possible. This is a conversation we are not having enough. I may well be wrong but if enough smart people discuss this, we may be able to work out how we do covid19 test meaningfully 7/n

Finally I just want to clarify that I’m the opposite of anti-covid anti-testing brigade. Quite the opposite. I’ve spent the last 18 months doing essentially only Covid diagnostic work. So I want to see it succeed. 8/n

@SouthAfricanASP @miamalan @nicd_sa @graemein @rcr_pereira @TamarKahn @ntobekon @LindaGailBekker @Tuliodna @TomEatonSA sorry for tagging you and perhaps you might not agree with what I’m saying but this conversation needs to be had