The crucial key to stopping it. We have a simple message for all countries test, test, test. Some countries have really cracked how to do this. South korea, with its drive through ten minute tests, is held up as a model for others to follow. But many countries are struggling to test at scale. In the uk, testing is having to be limited the cost, the infrastructure, the time the test takes are all holding up the battle against the disease. Now, there are dozens of efforts going on around the world to try and solve this. And jen has been looking at one close to home in west london. Around the world, companies and increasingly individuals, are racing to find ways to accurately test people for the coronavirus. The situation is changing daily, if not hourly. We simply dont have mass testing
available for the population now and theres a big effort going on to try and get that in place as quickly as possible to be able to manage this. Were in negotiations today to buy a so called antibody test, as simple as a pregnancy test, which can tell whether you have had the disease. There are two types of test being worked on. Diagnostic tests, which identify people who currently have coronavirus, and antibody tests these look for antibodies in the blood to see if a person ever had the virus in their system and if they did, when. The diagnostic tests are primarily based on a technology called pcr polymerase chain reaction. This is a standard molecular technique that identifies the genetic material of the virus from a throat or nose swab. The responsibility is going to be with us, but also with them. As we get the knowledge about new testing, we will alleviate the anxiety that we will alleviate the anxiety that we have in the world. Special emergency use authorisation from the American Food and Drug Administration has enabled two companies to ramp up commercial testing efforts in the us. One is swiss company, roche, which uses these machines already in many hospitals across the country to increase the amount of people who can be tested at once. The other is Thermo Fisher which uses its applied biosystem pcr instruments. The company aims to produce 5 million tests for these machines by early april. But its notjust Big Companies getting involved in testing efforts. In west london, a community of open source scientists, engineers and microbiologists working out of shipping containers in the open cell bio village are trying to help. There are 70 shipping containers
here with labs looking at a range of biotech challenges, from personalised medicine and dna sequencing, to bioelectronics and biomaterials. Its shared Molecular Biology Lab has been transformed to experiment with expanding Testing Capacity while also designing a portable lab solution built out of a shipping container that could be easily transported. Were trying to use these automative methods to speed up the testing kit because in order to test large populations, we need millions of covid 19 testing kits. Us company, opentrons, has donated two of its liquid handling machines to the lab for their work. These plates can test up to 96 samples at a time. These are also pcr diagnostic tests, like the ones we saw with other companies. But these are open source rather than proprietary and they say they would like to get the cost of testing down to five to £10 per test. Here in the uk, i think its really about getting into that nhs pipeline, being able to augment someones existing pathology department. And being able to say, look, heres the molecular biology kit with high throughput. So, the same one person could do 96 tests when they are doing one anyway. If it receives regulatory approval, the lab could theoretically be set up with just three machines inside a shipping container. As well as being able to augment existing pathology labs around the country, a shipping container set up could help people in places with far less access to medical facilities. Its not only useful for the uk but it will definitely be useful for other countries. It can also be something that can be reused in case anything like that happens again. Theres also a long term value there really. There are other test being developed in the uk. The university of leicester is working on a facemask test, using money from Research England and partnering with the nhs, to repurpose a test they were using for tuberculosis. By wearing a facemask for 30 minutes with 3d printed strips inside, it can show whether the person is breathing out the virus. Scientists at the university
of oxford say they have developed an ultrasensitive test that can work injust 30 minutes. They say it doesnt need the kind of machine used in the other tests and can be deployed to rural or remote areas quickly. They also say its sensitivity means it can detect when someone is in the early stages of the virus, which could help slow down transmission. Detecting the virus in the early stages in an asymptomatic carrier could indeed be Game Changing in halting its progress. Getting more tests out to as many people as possible as soon as possible could provide the data needed to accurately track the virus. That wasjen and it will be fascinating to see how that story develops. Pretty quickly, i would imagine. Now, with countries around the world battening down the hatches and locking down huge swathes of the population, everyone is having to make a plan for how theyre going to live through this. Technology will play a massive part and Stephen Beckett has been meeting the pop up groups who are trying to do their bit. Following in the footsteps of china and other countries around the world, many people in the uk are now being asked to stay at home or self isolate entirely particularly if theyre in an at risk group. That isolation poses its own challenges, from getting access to the basic necessities, to looking after your mental health. Well, last week, pop up online communities have appeared to try and help solve some of those problems. This is the covid mutual aid network. Each one of those pins is a local group pledging to help people in their community isolated by covid 19. And believe it or not, just a few days ago, none of them existed at all. In less than a week, the movement has snowballed into an entire improvised volunteering infrastructure. Im so surprised by how much it has grown since then. Now there are more than 7,000 or 8,000 local people involved. Every single ward in london seems to be covered by a Whatsapp Group where folks are looking to volunteer or connect with other people who need help, so its phenomenal. At the moment, the real heart of all of this is something quite basic, its groups on whatsapp. These are just a few of the ones ive joined in the last few days and already theyve got hundreds and hundreds of messages from people offering their help and trying to get involved. Obviously, this isjust around me but im told similar groups are popping up all across london and in some places around the uk. Beyond whatsapp, groups are using open access tools like google docs, sheets, and forms to bootstrap a whole volunteering infrastructure out of nowhere. All of that organisation is essential if the groups are going to reach more people in the community who may not be looking for support online. Its about 9am and im in an estate
in Central London waiting for a few members of the local group. Theyre planning to flyer this entire estate, every single house, this morning. The idea is if anyone needs help, maybe some supplies brought to their door, or even someone to tlk to for a bit of support then they know they have someone they can call. I think this is a really scary and anxious time but the best way forward is everyone coming together. And what an amazing time to discover your neighbours in this time were going to be shut up in our neighbourhoods. I think its grown so quickly because, actually, everyone feels a little bit at a loss of what to do and how they can help right now. I think everyones kind of thinking, well, we feel 0k perhaps, but what about the others who are struggling . Social media has pros and cons. This is one massive pro, so were actually now able to unite online. Given social distancing,
we can now co ordinate and plan remotely and get together and also give each other support. Its really important that we dont feel isolated at the moment, although we are physically. Actually connecting via social media and bringing the Community Together is really helping to combat loneliness. The wider group are clear to point out that they are not medical professionals, nor is it an official charity. This is a volunteer Community Effort trying to do small things to help. Does that mean the goodwill could be exploited 7 i think its still a little bit tricky and dangerous at times because the wrong messages can be sent and we are struggling with that a little bit as well. Some misinformation or fake news being passed around which is just not helpful. Its such early days for projects like this so its not clear yetjust how much impact pop up volunteering communities could have, but done safely, it feels to me like a good idea and some welcome good news. That is it for this weeks short cut. The full version is on iplayer right now. You can also find us on social media, more than ever these days for obvious reasons. Why not get in touch and tell us what you are doing to get through this current situation. You never know, we might even put your suggestions on air. If you are looking for something to do at home, check out oui something to do at home, check out our massive back catalogue on iplayer. You can connect us on facebook or instagram and twitter. Thank you for watching. Be safe and we will see you soon. Good afternoon. Two dry days for most of us and more to come, particularly in those areas that we re particularly in those areas that were badly affected by the flooding. The rest of the weekend is most definitely dry, plenty of sunshine, but there is that notable chili when coming in from the east and there will be frost tonight as well, despite the day is being longer than the night. This area of High Pressure is drifting away, but it will keep those weather fronts largely at bay. The reason for the chill is the air coming down from the arctic and across to our shores from scandinavia. We have barely seen temperatures at average for the last few days, but we should see it tomorrow as the wind eases. But it will pick up cloud from the east and the west. We have had more cloud in the west. We have had more cloud in the north east of scotland today and more cloud in Northern Ireland and despite the sunshine it is notably chili with temperatures a little bit lower than where they should be. The
rain should hold back to the west at least. Just flirting with the west and the Northern Isles as we go through the night. It alleviates the frost issues here. But for most of us, following the sunshine of the day, the clear night will provide the ingredients for a sharp frost and a quite wide frost. High pressure with us tomorrow ensures more dry weatherfor pressure with us tomorrow ensures more dry weather for most parts of the uk. Again, a good deal of sunshine. We have the risk of this cloud first thing in eastern scotland, but it should lift away. More cloud in the northern and western isles. But hopefully we will have more sunshine returning and temperatures will respond to that sunshine with slightly less wind. Roundabout average, but they will drop again in the clear skies overnight and there will be a widespread frost on monday morning. A bit ofa widespread frost on monday morning. A bit of a change takes place in the
early pa rt a bit of a change takes place in the early part of the week. This rain pushes into the great glen and we will potentially see about 100 millimetres of rain. For the vast majority, pleasant sunshine on monday and lighter winds, so feeling warmer. The rain makes its way into most parts of scotland by wednesday. This is bbc news. The headlines. Be responsible when you shop. An appeal by a senior British Government minister, who estimates that £1 billion worth of extra food has been stockpiled. It is making life more difficult for those front line workers such as our doctors and nurses and nhs support stuff who are working so hard in such difficult circumstances. Uk departmentment store john lewis is to temporarily close all of its 50 shops on monday the first time in its 155 year history thats happened. More beds, ventilators and thousands of extra staff will be made available from next week after a deal between nhs