Following the end of the second national lockdown last week, the government announced which restrictions would be in place for different areas of the country under its tier system.
Prior to the lockdown, Liverpool had one of the highest COVID-19 infection rates in the country (410.4 per 100,000 people as of 18-25 October). As a result, the city was seen as an ideal location to trial a community testing regime.
The community testing pilot, which commenced in early November, offered repeat COVID-19 tests to those who live and work in the city, irrespective of whether or not they had symptoms of the virus. While national advice is for people to get tests if they have Coronavirus symptoms, this trial aimed to reduce the spread by identifying people who were carrying COVID-19 but were asymptomatic and therefore would otherwise have been likely to unknowingly pass the virus on to others.
Anyone who came into contact with someone with symptoms was offered a rapid COVID-19 test every day for seven days and were not required to self-isolate unless they returned a positive result. This in turn relieved stress on the economy and people’s livelihoods, reducing the number of people who would need to take time off work in line with the 14-day self-isolation period.
The scheme appears to have been a success – in the government’s eyes at least. Liverpool dropped into tier two restrictions after the lockdown, making the city a bit of an anomaly in the region with much of the North West under tier three restrictions.
The key to a mass testing programme like this is speed – it can only be effective if positive cases are identified quickly to allow the appropriate action to be taken.
As such, Healgen lateral-flow tests were used. These rapid Covid tests can provide results in 15-30 minutes, eliminating time-consuming laboratory processing.
The UK government has gone on to spend more than £2bn on these tests, in the hope of replicating this model on a national level, should the rollout of a vaccine be unsuccessful.
If you’d like to find out more about rapid COVID-19 tests, get in touch with Covid Safe UK today.
