On covid tests... The UK trains an immense number of scientists but the govt has done nothing to get those that have left science back into the system. Relying on the goodwill of post docs and PhDs who are already under immense pressure isn't good enough.

This was being said back in March. If a training and recruitment programme had been put into place then we would have more people to process the tests.

My recommendations (and these have been given to ppl that can act)
- quickly recruit PhDs and postdocs by paying them for work and giving research funding for after winter
- Get biology grads w the right skills trained up for longer term testing(tests won’t end after this winter)

In 2018 there were 50,000 biology under grads (Not inc medicine) in the UK. We have the people but they need to be treated fairly and give them practical options to enable them to help w/o sabotaging careers. https://www.hesa.ac.uk/news/17-01-2019/sb252-higher-education-student-statistics/qualifications

Oh and just to add in... most biology grads are female. I wonder where most of them are now? @DrRachelEyre any thoughts to add?

Can someone do some quick research because from what I can see it looks like every crisis point in managing this (and it is never going to be perfect handling as people are learning all the time)comes down to how we manage children + the vulnerable in the UK.