Rapid '30 minute' COVID-19 testing coming to Devon
It will be available for people without symptoms who are key workers and for those who cannot work from home
Rapid ’30 minute’ community testing for people without Covid-19 symptoms who are key workers and who cannot work from home will soon be available across Devon.
It follows the Government announcement on January 10 that it is expanding asymptomatic community testing across the UK to find those who have COVID-19 but do not have symptoms and need to isolate and who may inadvertently be spreading the virus.
Rapid ‘lateral flow tests’, which provide a result within thirty minutes, will be used, and the first testing site will open at County Hall in Exeter towards the end of January, with further sites to open across Devon through February and March.
Steve Brown, Devon’s Director of Public Health, told Thursday’s Team Devon Local Outbreak Engagement Board meeting that the community testing was one the tools they were using to try and find the asymptomatic carriers, take them out of community, and then isolate to break the chain of transmission.
The testing will be focused on people who are out and about – the key workers leaving homes for paid employment or carers – rather than the wider community, and were for people without symptoms. Anyone with symptoms should carry on being tested in the usual fashion,
"We are setting up the community testing programme at a fast pace. Once in place, it will provide us with a useful tool for identifying people who are asymptomatic, who otherwise could be spreading the virus without their knowledge. This will help to break the chain of transmission and help slow the spread and protect other people.
"It will be a significant ask, and will require significant resources, and we expect it to go live at the end of January and then roll out over a six week period. This is a test to find and to identify people who have no symptoms but not a programme where people who are isolating can get back to work."
Steve Brown - Devon’s Director of Public Health
A negative result will not remove the need to follow existing Covid measures socially and in the workplace, and organisations and employers who have staff and workers who would be eligible for testing are encouraged to register their details.
Critical workers and those in high-risk occupations who still have to attend work, and people who are in contact with vulnerable individuals, such as carers, will be prioritised.
Community testing will complement and not substitute national coronavirus testing – anyone with symptoms should book a free NHS test via the GOV.UK website or by calling 119.
This will support existing testing arrangements and complement the national roll-out of lateral flow tests in some settings such as universities and schools and with some large employers.