Liverpool tested in pilot study for UK’s vaccine rollout

LONDON: Everyone living or working in the UK’s Liverpool is being offered COVID-19 rapid tests from Friday, whether they have symptoms or not, as a pilot ahead of an expected countrywide rollout.

The UK government has said the initiative will last for approximately two weeks and Liverpool Mayor Joe Anderson said it would help save lives, stop hospitals being overwhelmed and help the city ease out of lockdown.

The city has among England’s highest rates of coronavirus, with latest figures showing that Liverpool recorded 318 cases per 100,000 in the week up to November 2 and across England, the rate was 236 per 100,000.

People will be offered a mix of existing swab tests and new lateral flow tests, which could provide a result in 20 minutes without the need to use a lab.

New test sites have been set up across the city, in schools, universities, workplaces and care homes and military personnel have been brought in to help with the operation.

“These tests will help identify the many thousands of people in the city who don’t have symptoms but can still infect others without knowing,” said Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

“Dependent on their success in Liverpool, we will aim to distribute millions of these new rapid tests between now and Christmas and empower local communities to use them to drive down transmission in their areas. It is early days, but this kind of mass testing has the potential to be a powerful new weapon in our fight against COVID-19,” he said.

The pilot will help to inform a blueprint for how mass testing can be achieved and how fast and reliable COVID-19 testing can be delivered at scale, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said.