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Thousands of people have waited hours for a rapid response coronavirus test in Liverpool before spending Christmas Day with their loved ones.
Long lines formed outside test centers across the city on Christmas Eve, a day after some sites had to turn people away due to “incredible demand.”
It came as the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the spread of the coronavirus was still increasing in England, with one in 85 people thought to have had the disease last week, compared to one in 115 two weeks earlier.
Liverpool city council said nearly 10,000 people were tested on Wednesday, up from about 3,500 a day routinely, with wait times of up to two hours at most sites on Thursday as queues formed from 6.30 a.m. The city is one of the only places in the UK that operates walk-in testing centers for people without symptoms to take a 30-minute test.
Matthew Ashton, the city’s director of public health, said there had been “high demand” for the tests in the run-up to Christmas, but cautioned that a negative result did not mean people could ignore social distancing or other advice from hygiene.
He said: “We are reminding people that a negative test is not a green pass to ignore social distancing, hand hygiene, wearing face coverings and all the other measures that exist to prevent the spread of the virus. We also ask people who do not have vulnerable family members around on Christmas Day to help keep them safe. Covid is a Christmas gift that you neither want to give nor receive ”.
Interactive Lateral Flow Quick Test Lateral flow devices, which were originally tested in the city, are being deployed in more than 100 other local authorities, with many planning to use them primarily in workplaces, schools and residences.
All but two of the 16 open asymptomatic testing centers in Liverpool were “very busy” Thursday morning, according to a council map. The Liverpool Echo reported that hundreds of people were waiting in the morning at a site in Southport, which it said had screened 250 people around 10 a.m., compared to fewer than 500 every day last week.
Figures released by the ONS on Thursday suggested that 645,800 people in England had Covid-19 last week, with a sharp increase in London, the southeast and east of the country believed to be linked to the new hyper-infectious variant discovered in the Kingdom. United. earlier this month.
About two-thirds of people who test positive in these areas could have the new variant, the ONS said, adding that this was only an estimate based on the genes detected by the tests. The percentage of people with Covid-19 increased in Wales and Northern Ireland, but decreased in Scotland in the same period. – Guardian
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