[ad_1]
Image copyright
fake images
Government Says High Demand for Coronavirus Testing
People are expecting more of the test results from England’s community Covid testing centers, the figures show.
Only 28% of tests performed at these locations returned within 24 hours in the week through September 16.
That’s less than one in three last week, and two out of three the week before, NHS Test and Trace said.
Just over 5% of the tests took more than three days to recover. It occurs when the government is struggling to increase the capacity of laboratories to process tests.
Access to community testing has had to be rationed because the network of five Lighthouse Labs, which process testing done in the community, is struggling to keep up with demand.
The opening of a sixth lab in Newport has been delayed since August.
The government said the lab and a seventh in Loughborough would be open next month, helping to double the lab’s capacity to 500,000 by the end of October.
There are three types of community test centers: drive-thrus, walk-ins, and mobile units that are deployed in access point areas.
- Average response times for regional drive-thru centers increased from 27 hours the week before to 30
- Mobile units saw average times of 31 hours vs. 26
- Performance of local walk-ins improved slightly from 35 to 34 hours
However, delivery times for kits sent to people’s homes for the elderly and private homes improved. The government has prioritized nursing homes for testing in recent weeks amid a shortage of testing.
Tests performed in hospitals are processed by their own laboratories, and nine out of 10 test results are provided within 24 hours.
The weekly data released by NHS Test and Trace also includes figures on the performance of contact trackers.
They obtained the contact details of 77,500 close contacts of people who had tested positive, reaching three-quarters of them asking them to self-isolate.
The head of the NHS Test and Trace, Baroness Dido Harding, said the system was facing “unprecedented demand”.
“We continue to work tirelessly to develop our testing capacity to meet this and our goal of 500,000 tests per day, building our network of laboratories and test sites across the country.”
Meanwhile, people living in England and Wales are urged to download the government’s contact tracing app after its official launch.
NHS Covid-19 instructs users to self-isolate for 14 days if it detects that they were around someone who has the virus.
It also has a registry scanner to alert owners if a place they have visited is found to be a hotspot for an outbreak.
Anyone 16 years of age or older must install the app on their smartphone.
