This article is more than 4 months old

This article is more than 4 months old

The military is to begin operating mobile coronavirus testing units that will travel to care homes, police stations and prisons across the UK.

The units will test essential workers and vulnerable people in areas where there is “significant” demand, the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) said.

The mobile facilities can be set up in less than 20 minutes and allow for hundreds of people to be tested each day.

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Specially trained members of the armed forces will collect swabs to be sent to labs for processing, with results available within 48 hours, the DHSC said.

The government aims to hit its 100,000-a-day testing target by next Thursday. The home secretary, Priti Patel, told the Downing Street daily briefing on Saturday that 28,760 tests were carried on Friday.

Quick guide Will there be a second wave of coronavirus? Show Hide In recent days the UK has seen a sudden sharp increase in Covid-19 infection numbers, leading to fears that a second wave of cases is beginning. Epidemics of infectious diseases behave in different ways but the 1918 influenza pandemic that killed more than 50 million people is regarded as a key example of a pandemic that occurred in multiple waves, with the latter more severe than the first. It has been replicated – albeit more mildly – in subsequent flu pandemics. Until now that had been what was expected from Covid-19.

How and why multiple-wave outbreaks occur, and how subsequent waves of infection can be prevented, has become a staple of epidemiological modelling studies and pandemic preparation, which have looked at everything from social behaviour and health policy to vaccination and the buildup of community immunity, also known as herd immunity. Is there evidence of coronavirus coming back in a second wave? This is being watched very carefully. Without a vaccine, and with no widespread immunity to the new disease, one alarm is being sounded by the experience of Singapore, which has seen a sudden resurgence in infections despite being lauded for its early handling of the outbreak. Although Singapore instituted a strong contact tracing system for its general population, the disease re-emerged in cramped dormitory accommodation used by thousands of foreign workers with inadequate hygiene facilities and shared canteens. Singapore’s experience, although very specific, has demonstrated the ability of the disease to come back strongly in places where people are in close proximity and its ability to exploit any weakness in public health regimes set up to counter it. In June 2020, Beijing suffered from a new cluster of coronavirus cases which caused authorities to re-implement restrictions that China had previously been able to lift. In the UK, the city of Leicester was unable to come out of lockdown because of the development of a new spike of coronavirus cases. Clusters also emerged in Melbourne, requiring a re-imposition of lockdown conditions. What are experts worried about? Conventional wisdom among scientists suggests second waves of resistant infections occur after the capacity for treatment and isolation becomes exhausted. In this case the concern is that the social and political consensus supporting lockdowns is being overtaken by public frustration and the urgent need to reopen economies. However Linda Bauld, professor of public health at the University of Edinburgh, says “‘Second wave’ isn’t a term that we would use at the current time, as the virus hasn’t gone away, it’s in our population, it has spread to 188 countries so far, and what we are seeing now is essentially localised spikes or a localised return of a large number of cases.” The overall threat declines when susceptibility of the population to the disease falls below a certain threshold or when widespread vaccination becomes available. In general terms the ratio of susceptible and immune individuals in a population at the end of one wave determines the potential magnitude of a subsequent wave. The worry is that with a vaccine still many months away, and the real rate of infection only being guessed at, populations worldwide remain highly vulnerable to both resurgence and subsequent waves. Peter Beaumont, Emma Graham-Harrison and Martin Belam

As of Sunday there are eight mobile units carrying out tests, in areas including Salisbury, Southport and Teesside. The DHSC said at least 96 would be ready to be deployed by the start of May.

In a pilot scheme last week, DHSC vehicles were refitted to become testing facilities, based on a design by the army’s Royal Engineers.

The armed forces will staff 92 of the units, while civilian contractors will operate a further four located in Northern Ireland, the DHSC said.

The mobile sites will also travel to frontline workers in the fire and rescue service and at benefits centres.

The defence secretary, Ben Wallace, said: “Our armed forces will help deliver testing to where it’s most needed, using a network of up to 96 mobile units that will be rolled out in the coming weeks.

“They will make sure our care sector get the testing required to remain in the front line of the fight against this pandemic.”

The national testing coordinator, Prof John Newton, said: “New mobile testing units will help us achieve our goal of 100,000 coronavirus tests a day, providing tests to vital frontline workers wherever they need them.

“In a matter of weeks, we have worked with Britain’s leading scientists, academics and industry partners to build scores of new testing facilities and Britain’s largest network of diagnostic labs in history.”

More than 10 million key workers and their households are eligible for Covid-19 tests, which can now be booked online through the government’s website.

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