At this morning's full meeting of Salford City Council, in answer to a question about the much criticised Operation Moonshot from Councillor Joan Walsh, the Lead Member for Adult Services, Health and Wellbeing, Councillor Gina Reynolds, responded that it had now "ceased", through a lack of "consumables" at the labs and the "results and validation" of the tests.
Operation Moonshot was launched by Prime Minister, Boris Johnson in September,* who hailed it as a panacea, saying "Theatres and sports venues could test all audience members on the day and let in those with a negative result...we are going to pilot this approach in Salford from next month, with audiences in indoor and outdoor venues."
That never happened, and today, Councillor Reynolds added some scant details as to why it failed. Her full statement reads...
"The ambition was to undertake mass community testing...this did start in September but the reality that we have found is very different due to this Government's failings...
"We've been left in a very awkward position because what we communicated to the public back in September hasn't actually materialised because we haven't done mass testing and we haven't tested 70% of our population. It's led to difficult conversations, not only with the local and national press but most importantly with our residents, and it's increased the workload for our staff because we've had to deal with so many enquiries over this.
"We agreed to this pilot in good faith and we've been fully committed to working with the Government on this in advance of a vaccine. Before we proceeded, the City Mayor and officers and partners wrote to the Secretary of State and to Dido Harding a couple of times asking for reassurances on several critical issues; and we asked for this before we went ahead and were promised that the test was ready for use. It was even confirmed publicly by the Prime Minister that it was ready for use.
"Instead we found that the Government had set unachievable goals and not delivered on it promises – during September and October we tested asymptomatic colleagues across partnerships, including our teaching staff, running the lamp saliva test alongside the PCR test but with limited access to consumables at the Manchester lab that we use.
"And on 13th October, the Department of Health and Social Care shifted their approach in Salford, from mass community testing to targeting high risk environments and groups, but we were unable to progress with this due to the lack of consumables again available from the Manchester lab.
"We have asked for clarity on a number of occasions and haven't had a timely response and have also found an unwillingness by the Government to enter into serious discussions on testing protocols and procedures, and around the data.
"Currently this pilot has been ceased while scientists and clinicians from Greater Manchester consider the results and validation undertaken because I think it's important that the efficacy and timeliness are obviously considered with this pilot.
"Thankfully the Government are financially compensating us for the work already undertaken but I think we have to be mindful that this Operation Moonshot has already had £12billion spent nationally, and I have to agree with the recent Guardian article that described Operation Moonshot as like building the Channel Tunnel without civil engineers looking at the plans.
"Let's hope that the Government is going to learn from its mistakes because now we have been asked to undertake lateral flow testing following on from the Liverpool pilot. I find it incredibly disappointing how the Council has been treated by this Government so far. Our dedicated staff are putting in an incredible amount of time into this work to benefit everyone in this city..."
For a full background on Operation Moonshot see previous Salford Star articles – click here and click here and click here and click here
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