Whole city testing pilot set for Liverpool

Everyone living or working in Liverpool will now be offered coronavirus testing, whether they have symptoms or not, in the first pilot of whole city testing in England.

At the request of and in close collaboration with local leaders, the Prime Minister is announcing the first deployment of whole city testing in order to help support the local area to find even more people with coronavirus to control the spread of the virus and gain more data on the number of cases across the city, which are already among the highest per 100,000 in the UK. 

Testing will begin this week and residents and workers will be tested using a combination of existing swab tests, as well as new lateral flow tests which can rapidly turn around results within an hour without the need to be processed in a lab, as well as LAMP technology due to be deployed in Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust for NHS staff.

The pilot will help to inform a blueprint for how mass testing can be achieved and how fast and reliable coronavirus testing can be delivered at scale.

The greater the number of people who participate, the greater the accuracy of the local picture, which will mean better local decision-making to suppress the virus to help communities get back to doing more of the normal things they like to do. Testing will be carried out in sites across the city, including a large number of new sites determined by local leaders. 

Positive results from tests will be collected by NHS Test and Trace, and published as part of the daily case numbers, including how many positive cases are detected with this new method of testing. Results will be received from NHS Test and Trace via text and email.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: "I want to thank the civic leaders of Liverpool for volunteering to join the UK’s first city-wide population testing pilot and the people of Liverpool for taking part. 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. 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.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said: "Last month we set out our ambition to use the latest mass testing technologies to bring this virus under control. Mass testing will help us to control this virus, by finding it even before people get symptoms. I’m delighted we can now roll out mass testing to whole cities – starting with the City of Liverpool. Using half a million of the very latest rapid tests, this rollout can help suppress the virus and give residents and workers some peace of mind.

"I want to thank local leaders, Mayor of Liverpool Joe Anderson and City Region Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram, and Liverpool’s Director of Public Health Matt Ashton, who will continue to work hand in hand with our dedicated armed forces to provide tests to anyone who wants one, fully supported by NHS Test and Trace."

Mayor of Liverpool Joe Anderson said: "During negotiations with central government, myself and Steve Rotheram have always highlighted the need for enhanced public health intervention measures in Liverpool and the wider city region, and we were keen that we should be considered for any new strategies to tackle the worrying rise in COVID-19.

"We are pleased that our numerous conversations have resulted in Liverpool becoming a pilot for mass testing, which will help to quickly identify people who have the virus and reduce transmission substantially. We are seeing a slow reduction in figures in Liverpool which shows we are on the right path and residents and businesses are working together and following guidelines for the greater good. We hope this new initiative boosts our efforts, and we will continue to see the numbers of positive cases drop across the city."