Parliament’s spending watchdog said it had 'no clear impact' despite £37 billion budget — but what do the numbers say?

12 Mar 2021 | Full Fact's weekly news
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FACT CHECK
Does Test and Trace work?

On Wednesday, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said that the impact of NHS Test and Trace is still unclear—despite the government budgeting £37 billion for the project over two years.

The PAC rightly noted that Test and Trace has only provided limited evidence showing its impact on reducing the transmission of Covid-19.

A few weeks ago we looked into the claim that Test and Trace reduced the R number by 0.3 to 0.6 in October. But much of this benefit may have been due to people with symptoms self-isolating, regardless of any contact tracing intervention.

However, the PAC's report does not deal with the other potential benefits of Test and Trace beyond reducing transmission.

A focus on contact tracing means the testing element is often forgotten, despite the fact that it accounts for the vast majority of the programme’s costs. We know that increased testing has benefits, such as determining whether people have Covid-19 and need to self-isolate, and helping schools to reopen.

Additionally, Test and Trace data underpins government decisions on local and national restrictions which certainly do affect the R rate.
How much has it cost? ([link removed])
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FACT CHECK
Children's minister sparks school testing confusion ([link removed])

As schools reopen this week, there has been some confusion about what parents should do if their children test positive for Covid-19.

As stated in government guidance, all pupils returning to school should be given two Covid-19 tests each week. Pupils’ first three tests will be taken under supervision at their school or college.

Thereafter, they will be sent testing kits for testing at home, which should continue to be done twice weekly. All testing will be done by lateral flow test.

But Vicky Ford, the Children’s Minister, sparked confusion when she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that any child with a positive lateral flow result should self-isolate with their families, even if a non-rapid PCR test later comes back negative.

This was inaccurate: if a subsequent PCR test is negative, they can then return to school. The only exception is if the original lateral flow test was done under supervision in school rather than at home, as the government said this means there is only a “minimal” chance the result could be incorrect so no further tests are needed.

Ms Ford’s claim was reported by a number of newspapers, before the government clarified that this was not accurate.
When are you entitled to a follow-up test? ([link removed])
FACT CHECK
Daily Express wrongly implies that Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine leads to more side effects than Pfizer jab ([link removed])


The Daily Express wrongly implied that the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine leads to more adverse side effects than the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine this week.

But this is wrong. The article also mixes up two different sources of information about side effects.

In its claim about AstraZeneca, The Express may be referring to “Yellow Card” reports which allow members of the public to report health problems following vaccination. As such, Yellow Card reports do not give a balanced picture of the side effects being experienced in the real world—because they represent suspected side effects, rather than proven ones.

If this is the case, then it is using unreliable data. As the summary to the report itself says: “Yellow card data cannot be used to derive side effect rates or compare the safety profile of COVID-19 vaccinations as many factors can influence [adverse drug reaction] reporting.”

If the Express is referring to the clinical trial data, then it has described its findings in a very misleading way.

The AstraZeneca vaccine has “more adverse side effects than the Pfizer jab” only in the sense that the list of “very common” side effects for AstraZeneca is longer. But this doesn’t mean the side effects are more common.
The potential side effects ([link removed])
MORE FACT CHECKS
Also this week...
* There are no mouse brains in Covid-19 vaccines ([link removed])
* Covid-19 vaccines haven’t caused 460 deaths ([link removed])
* Did Eat Out to Help Out cause Covid to spread? ([link removed])
* Test and Trace has much larger budget than Mars Perseverance expedition ([link removed])
* It’s not clear if antidepressants cause hair loss ([link removed])

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