Surge testing for South African variant in chaos as slots book up
SURGE testing for the South African variant has been thrown into chaos, with appointments booked up in some south London centres until next Friday.
The UK’S largest surge testing operation to date was deployed yesterday after 44 confirmed cases of the B.1.351 variant were discovered across Lambeth and Wandsworth.
Everyone over the age of 11 in both boroughs has been asked to book a PCR test in the next fortnight, whether they have coronavirus symptoms or not.
The scramble for slots meant that by mid-afternoon yesterday, appointments at Tooting Leisure Centre, one of three sites being used for in-person testing by Wandsworth council, were fully booked until April 26. The next available appointments at Roehampton University are on Monday, and there are no slots at Wandsworth Town Hall until next Friday.
Wandsworth residents who are “desperate or really anxious” to get themselves tested should order a kit from the Government website or pick up a home testing kit from the Town Hall, a council spokesman said. “There’s huge demand and there are 300,000-plus tests that need to be carried out, so we ask people to bear that in mind and be patient and keep trying,” he said.
While Wandsworth council hopes to set up more testing facilities by the weekend, it is understood that this will depend on whether enough test kits and trained Test and Trace staff are available.
Some pop-up centres in Lambeth saw queues of up to three hours, prompting the council to deploy emergency additional capacity in the afternoon.
It is thought the virus spread from an individual who returned from a country in Africa to members of their household and then to a care home in Lambeth, where 23 people were infected.
One of the 13 infected staff at the care home received a Pfizer vaccine dose two or more weeks before their positive test. The disclosure is likely to intensify the debate over “red list” travel policies, and whether staff working in care homes should be required to be vaccinated against Covid. Public Health England officials are hopeful the cluster of cases, described by chief Test and Trace adviser Susan Hopkins as “significant”, will be brought under control.
Yvette Cooper, chair of the home affairs committee, said the case exposed flaws in the Government’s border controls. Meanwhile, mass testing plans are facing disarray less than a week into the rollout as pharmacies were forced to ration supplies. Twice-weekly rapid tests were made available in England on Friday via an online ordering system and a new “Pharmacy Collect” service. Anyone over 18 who is asymptomatic can collect a box of seven lateral flow tests to use twice a week at home.
Pharmacies have been told they can only order rapid tests for around 50 people because of supply concerns. Last week some pharmacies said they did not expect to get any deliveries for “weeks”, while members of the public also reported issues sourcing the tests.
A source close to the rollout said the Government and NHS had “pretty much no idea” of the likely demand for the tests. The Department of Health and Social Care was contacted for comment.