All essential workers and households to be able to book tests from tomorrow
At today’s daily coronavirus press briefing, The health secretary Matt Hancock, announced that all essential workers, as well as those living in the same house as them, will have access to tests for COVID-19 from tomorrow.
“From tomorrow, any essential workers who need a test will be able to book an appointment on gov.uk themselves directly,”
Hancock has also said that there will be further efforts in testing for COVID-19 and a “huge effort under way to limit the spread in care homes”.
The capacity for testing has increased from 40,000 to 51,000, which means that the group of people who are eligible will increase, explained the health secretary.
Employers will be able to go on gov.uk to get a test for any of their staff who need one. From tomorrow, any essential workers who need a test will be able to book a test on gov.uk themselves directly.
This applies for those who live in essential workers’ households as well.
Those included as essential workers will be based on the same list as schools and education, and the whole process will be free.
Mr Hancock also confirmed that 583,496 coronavirus tests have now been carried out in the UK, including 23,560 tests yesterday. 138,078 people have tested positive for infection do far in the country, which is a rise of 4,583 cases since yesterday.
17,615 people are currently in hospital and sadly 18,738 have now died from COVID-19, after a further 616 fatalities have occurred within UK hospitals in the last 24 hours.
Professor John Newton, coordinator of the UK coronavirus testing programme, says the number of mobile drive-through test centres in the UK will be increasing from 31 to 48 centres.
“We are also currently working with the Army on a new pop-up mobile testing option, which was developed for us by the Army and is really working very well,”
“So we’re going to have 48 of these pop-up facilities which can travel around the country to where they’re needed most, for example in care homes.”
This news comes as the first human trial for a coronavirus vaccine has begun in Oxford, following Matt Hancock announcing that trials for the drug would start today.
More than 800 people have been recruited for the study, and half of those people will receive the Covid-19 vaccine (ChAdOx1 nCoV-19), and half will instead receive control vaccine which protects against meningitis but not coronavirus. The design of the trial means volunteers will not know which vaccine they are getting, though doctors will.
Sarah Gilbert, professor of vaccinology at the Jenner Institute, led the pre-clinical research, has said:
“Personally I have a high degree of confidence in this vaccine,”
“Of course, we have to test it and get data from humans. We have to demonstrate it actually works and stops people getting infected with coronavirus before using the vaccine in the wider population.”
