Taxi drivers, security guards and shop workers face regular coronavirus tests as they are ‘high risk’ for fuelling the outbreak without symptoms
- Dido Harding said NHS Test and Trace will get better at ‘hunting out’ coronavirus
- That will mean regularly testing people in ‘high risk, high contact’ professions
- Will see taxi drivers, security guards and shop workers without symptoms tested
- Here’s how to help people impacted by Covid-19
Taxi drivers, security guards and shop workers will all be subject to regular coronavirus tests under Government plans to get better at ‘hunting out’ the disease.
People without symptoms who work in ‘high risk’ professions will soon get checked as part of the NHS Test and Trace programme.
‘High risk’ is defined as any job where people spend extended periods of time in an enclosed space with a large number of customers or colleagues.
The Government believes being able to identify asymptomatic coronavirus patients will help stop a second wave of the disease amid fears people are unknowingly spreading the infection.
However, such a move will require a massive increase in testing capacity, far above the current daily capability of approximately 220,000, if potentially millions of workers are to be regularly checked.
Dido Harding, the executive chairwoman of NHS Test and Trace, said routine testing will be rolled out to ‘high risk’ professions like taxi drivers and security guards
Many hospitals are now routinely testing staff without coronavirus symptoms in a bid to stop outbreaks.
It is thought as high as 70 per cent of people who are infected may not actually display any of the associated symptoms like a fever or a persistent cough.
Dido Harding, executive chairwoman of NHS Test and Trace, confirmed at yesterday’s daily Downing Street press conference that routine testing of asymptomatic people will be expanded beyond the health sector.
She said: ‘We are now rolling that approach out to other high risk, high contact professions like people who spend significant amounts of time in enclosed space with a large number of people — so taxi drivers, security guards.
‘We need to get better at hunting out the virus, both as individuals — if we have the symptoms getting a test — and then NHS Test and Trace needs to get better at targeting our testing in communities and professions where there are likely to be more people who have the disease but aren’t showing symptoms.’
Officials are currently in the process of determining which professions will be included in the ‘high risk’ category and how regularly tests will be carried out, according to The Times.
The Government launched its contact tracing programme two weeks ago.
It is viewed as the key to preventing a second wave of coronavirus, with anyone who tests positive and their close contacts told to self-isolate in order to break the chain of transmission.
However, the programme has got off to a rocky start with data published yesterday showing contact tracers have failed to secure contact details for close contacts of positive tests in a large proportion of cases.
The data showed that some 8,117 people who tested positive for Covid-19 in England had their case transferred to the NHS system, of whom 5,407 (67 per cent) were reached.
But 2,710 (33 per cent) did not provide information about their contacts or could not be reached.
Overall, 31,794 contacts were identified and, of these, 26,985 were reached and advised to self-isolate – 85 per cent of the total number of contacts.
Of the remaining 15 per cent (4,809), some were not reached, others said they were already taking action independently of the system and some simply refused to comply.