Denmark, Australia extend tests to those with mild symptoms

COPENHAGEN • Some countries are ramping up their coronavirus testing to cover more people, including those with mild symptoms, in a bid to slow the pandemic.

Denmark has added capacity and is expanding its testing to anyone who displays even mild symptoms, Health Minister Magnus Heunicke said on Monday.

It previously tested only people with severe symptoms, or those with mild ones but who have close ties to the elderly or patients suffering from chronic diseases.

Mr Heunicke said that anyone with even mild symptoms should contact their doctor by telephone. If told to do so, they would be able to undergo testing in new facilities, which include makeshift laboratories in white tents being set up across the country.

Denmark, one of the first countries in Europe to impose strict measures to fight the outbreak of Covid-19, is also among the first to initiate a slow return to normality, with schools, hairdressers and dentists reopening after a month-long shutdown.

In Australia, the authorities have advised those with a cough, temperature or a sore throat to get tested, as part of its widened criteria to weed out anyone with symptoms.

The expanded testing come on the back of praises for some countries that have acted quickly to test their people as the virus spread.

Iceland, with just 364,000 people, has tested about 10 per cent of its population.

That makes it by far the world leader in testing per capita - 10 times more than South Korea.

The Asian country has conducted 10 tests per 1,000 inhabitants, according to the Our World in Data website. It has managed to test more than 140,000 in a short space of time, using kits with sensitivity rates of over 95 per cent, according to the Korean Society for Laboratory Medicine.

The tests are largely free and, for the elderly or those who are too ill to step out, medical teams can visit their homes to take swabs for testing. The country also made headlines for its drive-through screening centres.

Germany plans to test its population for antibodies in the coming months, hoping to gain valuable insight into how deeply the virus has penetrated society at large, how deadly it really is, and whether immunity might be developing.

The country, which produces most of its high-quality test kits, is already testing people for virus symptoms on a greater scale than most - 120,000 a day and growing in a population of 83 million.

It had already tested about 920,000 people through late March and checked more than 350,000 people in the past week, the Robert Koch Institute public health group said in early April.

In the United States, the Trump administration declared on Monday that the country has enough laboratory testing capacity for states to begin reopening economies, though governors say they still lack supplies such as swabs.

"We have enough testing capacity today for every state in America to go to phase one" of the White House's reopening plan, Vice-President Mike Pence said.

They also need to "meet the other criteria of 14 days of reduced cases and sufficient hospital capacity to prepare for any eventuality that may occur".

BLOOMBERG, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, NYTIMES