Hancock introduces 'walk-through' test centres following fierce criticism

[Northerner]

New “walk-through” coronavirus testing centres will help in the battle against the pandemic, the health secretary, Matt Hancock, has insisted after sustained opposition criticism of the government’s stance.

Hancock said that six new testing centres would be available in England offering appointments to people without cars.

The move comes after Labour strongly attacked the government’s performance on test and trace during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Hancock said the number of mobile testing units will double to 236 by the end of July and that new “priority postboxes” for testing kits would be created.

He urged everyone with symptoms to get a free test.

Six new walk-in testing sites are offering appointments to people in England with the “capacity to test hundreds of people each day”, the Department of Health and Social Care stated.

Hancock introduces 'walk-through' test centres following fierce criticism

People without cars can book appointments at six new Covid-19 testing sites in England

www.theguardian.com

Erm, six walk-in centres? SIX? For the whole of England? 🙄 How will this help people without cars? Why has it taken so long anyway?Next to useless as far as I can see. I've heard the home tests can be quite difficult to do and therefore give a lot of inaccurate results. Why couldn't surgeries have been allowed to order tests for patients? 🙄

 

[Bruce Stephens]

Why couldn't surgeries have been allowed to order tests for patients?

That would be most useful if such "surgeries" were scattered widely across the country, maybe with medical staff who could assist in taking the samples, and already used to sending such samples to labs where they could be processed. Oh, wait...

 

[grovesy]

In some areas some surgeries were closed and turned in to Covid hubs for the area. So it would have made sense for these to be able to do testing.

 

[KARNAK]

Hear hear.

 

[trophywench]

30,000 additional post boxes. ISTR some are embedded in privately owned walls. Some of the walls have been there quite a long time. Need some skilled bricklayers and stone masons ..... able to use lime and horsehair mortar and with good pointing skills !

 

[Amity Island]

New “walk-through” coronavirus testing centres will help in the battle against the pandemic, the health secretary, Matt Hancock, has insisted after sustained opposition criticism of the government’s stance.

Hancock said that six new testing centres would be available in England offering appointments to people without cars.

The move comes after Labour strongly attacked the government’s performance on test and trace during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Hancock said the number of mobile testing units will double to 236 by the end of July and that new “priority postboxes” for testing kits would be created.

He urged everyone with symptoms to get a free test.

Six new walk-in testing sites are offering appointments to people in England with the “capacity to test hundreds of people each day”, the Department of Health and Social Care stated.

Hancock introduces 'walk-through' test centres following fierce criticism

People without cars can book appointments at six new Covid-19 testing sites in England

www.theguardian.com

Erm, six walk-in centres? SIX? For the whole of England? 🙄 How will this help people without cars? Why has it taken so long anyway?Next to useless as far as I can see. I've heard the home tests can be quite difficult to do and therefore give a lot of inaccurate results. Why couldn't surgeries have been allowed to order tests for patients? 🙄

And, it seems counter productive to test those that already feel ill with classic covid symptoms? They should just self isolate. It's all the asymptomatic carriers that need testing surely?

 

[Bruce Stephens]

And, it seems counter productive to test those that already feel ill with classic covid symptoms? They should just self isolate. It's all the asymptomatic carriers that need testing surely?

I imagine quite a few of those who (reasonably) think they have Covid in fact don't. (Less so a couple of months ago.)

And England's contact tracing starts with a positive test so testing people is critical for that, as is doing the testing as fast as possible. (I'd have thought it would then make sense to test all contacts, whether they have symptoms or not, in an effort to try and find at least some of these asymptomatic carriers. But for whatever reason we're not doing that yet.)