Home Tests For 100,000 As Raab Warns: Don't Go Out Yet

A home testing programme will track the progress of coronavirus across England, the Government will say today.

- Hanna Geissler

A sample of 100,000 randomly chosen people will be invited to provide nose and throat swabs to see whether they are currently infected.

Evaluations of antibody tests will continue to see if they are accurate and easy to use, and they could be rolled out to 100,000 people later this year if found to be good enough.

Health Minister Lord Bethell said understanding how the virus spreads and whether some people have immunity will be a vital part of our pandemic response.

Crucial

He said: “This ambitious new programme will help us track the rate of the infection now.

“And, crucially, it will help identify an antibody test that is accurate and easy to use, and which can give us an indication of how many people have already had the infection.

“This information will inform the future action we take to manage the spread of the virus, including the development of new tests and treatments.”

In the first phase, 100,000 randomly selected people from 315 local authorities will be invited for testing.

In the second, a number of antibody tests will be checked on volunteers at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust who are known to have had the virus to see if they can accurately indicate when someone has previously been infected.

And 300 volunteers will also be invited to self-administer the antibody tests by placing a finger-prick of blood into a cassette, adding dye and reading the result. This will determine whether they are simple enough to use at home.

If the antibody tests are accurate and effective, they will be rolled out to up to an initial 10,000 people – and, if all goes well, 100,000 later in the year.