Hancock unveils 20-minute test, and rolls out antibody checks

TESTS for coronavirus that give results in 20 minutes are to be offered to the public today, as efforts increase to get the country out of lockdown.

The Health Secretary last night announced the launch of a trial that aims to tell people instantly if they are carrying the virus.

If successful, it will be rolled out within six weeks, with pop-up and drive-through services. Matt Hancock said the testing regime was the “guiding star” to “restore freedom in this country”. He also announced the Government had signed contracts for 10 million antibody tests, which will first be offered to NHS and care workers.

He also said surveillance antibody testing had revealed that about 17 per cent of people in London, and at least 5 per cent elsewhere, had tested positive for coronavirus antibodies. The health minister indicated those who are found to have developed antibodies could be issued with certification to state that they have already contracted the virus.

The announcement followed a litany of testing failures and criticism after the Government repeatedly missed targets to carry out 100,000 tests a day.

The failures led to warnings that Mr Hancock’s job was on the line if there was no breakthrough in a “test, track and trace” strategy to get Britain out of lockdown.

Health officials said the antigen tests had proved successful in test settings, and would be tried on up to 4,000 people in A&E departments, GP testing hubs and care homes.

If the pilot succeeds, it will become the standard test for the virus. The instant nature of the checks means those who test positive could immediately self-isolate, while those who test negative can return to work. Mr Hancock said the instant tests “could change the way we control Covid-19, getting those with negative results back into society as quickly as possible”.

“Getting a test is important, but getting a quick result is important too,” he told the Downing Street press conference yesterday. “It’s already proven effective in early trials and we want to find out if it will be effective on a larger scale.” Trials start today in Hampshire.

The scheme will be led by Hampshire Hospitals NHS Trust, with trained health professionals asked to take a swab and process the results on-site.

Mr Hancock said: “Our testing regime will be our guiding star. It’s the information that helps us to search out and defeat this virus.” In the pilots, tests will be offered to patients and health workers with symptoms and to residents and workers in some care homes.

Mr Hancock said the spot tests would be particularly useful for health and care staff, allowing them to continue working, or enter immediate isolation, without putting others at risk.

Unlike standard tests, the loop-mediated isothermal amplification – or Lamp – swab test, developed by UK manufacturer Optigene, does not require a

change in temperature to detect results, meaning it does not have to be sent to a laboratory.

Earlier, Mr Hancock had come under fire over the slow roll-out of the “test, track and trace” scheme, currently being piloted on the Isle of Wight. He had previously said the roll-out would come in mid-may, but it was now not expected to start until next month.

This week his scientific advisers warned the system had to be in place before schools reopened on June 1. Last night Mr Hancock insisted the scheme, which uses manual contact tracers and an app to alert people when they have been near someone who has tested positive, would start next month.

A source close to Mr Hancock said: “He knows his job is on the line if this doesn’t work.”

Under the system, those testing positive will be contacted by the tracing team and asked for details of close contacts so they can be told to self-isolate for 14 days if the level of contact is considered high risk. But they would not be tested if they did not show symptoms.

This concerned Jeremy Hunt, the former health secretary and now chairman of the Commons health committee, who said last night: “They are just going to tell people to self-isolate when I would have thought the obvious thing to do is test them.”