A new rapid coronavirus test costing £5 and giving results in just 15 minutes is reportedly ‘close to being ready’ in time for Christmas.
Millions of the on-the-spot saliva swabs could be rolled out to help keep offices and schools open during the second wave.
Football stadiums, concert arenas and theatres could also welcome back customers who test negative on the door, a government source told The Sun.
The source said the ‘rapid-turnaround, relatively inexpensive tests’ are simple to use and can be done ‘with no specialist training or equipment’, adding: ‘I’d be very surprised if we were not in good shape by Christmas for these tests.’
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They involve taking a swab from inside the nose or mouth which is then mixed with a solution.
After placing a few drops onto the testing stick a line will appear if any virus is detected.
Scientists have sent out several swabs across England for field tests, including to untrained teenagers to check how easy they are to use and valid results have reportedly come back within minutes.
The source told The Sun they will ‘add a whole other dimension to our testing capabilities’.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson remains ‘hopeful’ that ‘we could be able to get some aspects of our lives back to normal by Christmas’.
Paul Hunter, professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia, told the newspaper the cheap and quick tests could be a ‘big advantage’ in realising those hopes ‘if they are shown to work’, adding: ‘There is no doubt it would be very helpful if we had this sort of cheap accurate testing for a whole host of areas.’
But Professor John Edmunds, a member of the government’s Sage group, cautioned that any expectations of normality before the New Year ‘is wishful thinking in the extreme’.
He said ‘radical action’ would be needed to stem the rise in coronavirus cases, particularly in regions with high incidence of the virus.
The latest figures suggest the number of new daily cases across England doubled in a fortnight – although scientists said the rate of spread of the virus may be slowing.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) infection survey estimated there was an average of 35,200 new cases per day of Covid-19 in the community in England between October 10 and 16.
That was up 26% from an estimated 27,900 new cases per day for the period from October 2 to 8 and just over double the 17,200 new cases per day from September 25 to October 1.
The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) said the reproduction number, or R value, for the whole of the UK had nudged down to between 1.2 and 1.4. Last week it put the figure at between 1.3 and 1.5.
A further 224 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of Friday, while as of 9am there had been a further 20,530 lab-confirmed cases in the UK.
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source https://metro.co.uk/2020/10/24/covid-saliva-tests-which-give-results-in-15-minutes-could-be-ready-by-christmas-13473359/