Latest updates: expansion sees another 1,200 testing sites set up in England as the government tries to combat impacts of self-isolation ‘pingdemic’
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Good morning. On Friday last week the government announced that it was setting up 500 Covid testing sites so that workers in the food supply industry, if told to isolate because they had been in contact with someone testing positive, could instead do a daily test as an alternative. It was the government’s first response to concern about the so-called “pingdemic”, and reports that hundreds of thousands of workers would be missing work because they were having to isolate. But at the time George Eustice, the environment secretary, stressed that this was only a limited measure, and that for most people the government was still committed to test, trace and isolate as its strategy.
Over the weekend the government announced that it was expanding the scheme further, with 200 more testing centres to cover emergency service staff – some police, firefighters, Border Force staff and transport workers. But last night a further, significant extension of the scheme was announced. The government said another 1,200 sites were being set up to cover “frontline sectors” and it said that this would take the total number of sites to 2,000 in England. That is a four-fold increase on what was on the table just four days ago.
In addition to critical staff working in prisons, defence and waste collection, people working in energy, pharmaceuticals, telecoms, chemicals, communications, water, space, fish, veterinary medicine and HMRC will also be prioritised for the 1,200 new daily contact testing sites.
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