Liverpool mass-testing seen as pilot scheme in fight against Covid-19

Everyone living or working in Liverpool will be offered a coronavirus test from Friday, regardless of whether they have symptoms, in a mass testing scheme Boris Johnson claims could offer a way out of the pandemic. The city, which has one of the highest infection rates in Britain, will offer a combination of conventional swab tests, and new lateral flow tests that produce results within an hour.

“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,” Mr Johnson said.

“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.”

The pilot scheme comes as England prepares to enter a second national lockdown on Thursday, with bars, restaurants and non-essential shops closing and most people obliged to stay at home, although schools and third-level colleges will remain open.

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In the House of Commons on Monday, the prime minister sought to dampen a backbench Conservative revolt by guaranteeing that the lockdown would end on December 2nd and promising MPs a vote on what happens next. He said the speed of the virus’s spread meant the government had no option but to impose the lockdown, a move he had repeatedly ruled out in recent weeks as he defended his government’s system of local lockdowns.

"I believe it was right to try every possible option to get this virus under control at a local level, with strong local action and strong local leadership. And I reject any idea that we are somehow slower in taking measures than our European friends and partners. In fact we are moving to national measures when the rate both of deaths and infections is lower than they were in France, " he said.

Starmer criticisms

Labour leader Keir Starmer, who called three weeks ago for a circuit-breaker lockdown lasting two or three weeks, said the prime minister's delay had cost lives and made a longer lockdown necessary. He recalled that the government's scientific advisers had called for such a limited lockdown on September 21st when there were 11 deaths from coronavirus and just over 4,000 infections.

“For 40 days the prime minister ignored that advice. When he finally announced a longer and deeper national lockdown on Saturday, those figures had increased to 326 deaths a day and 22,000 Covid cases. That is the human cost of the government’s inaction,” he said.

A number of Conservative MPs, including 1922 Committee chairman Graham Brady, have said they will vote against the lockdown on Wednesday, although Labour has promised to vote with the government. Charles Walker, vice-chairman of the 1922 Committee, said Britain was drifting into "an authoritarian, coercive state" and called for a written constitution to guarantee rights.

“Given that the people of this country will never, ever forgive the political class for criminalising parents seeing children and children seeing parents, does the prime minister not agree with me that now is the time for a written constitution that guarantees the fundamental rights of our constituents – a constitution underpinned and enforced by the supreme court?” he said.