A bid has been submitted by the Isle of Wight Council for lateral flow testing to be introduced for front-facing workers.
The Department for Health and Social Care has yet to approve the council’s bid but the authority said it is hopeful it will go through and when it does, it will be ready to roll out the testing as early as the start of next week.
Speaking at a meeting of the Local Outbreak Engagement Board earlier on Thursday, director of public health for the Isle of Wight, Simon Bryant, said the community testing will be able to break the chain of transmission and infections as lateral flow tests will pick up the people with COVID who have no symptoms and appear perfectly fine.
He said:
“We know about a third of cases are asymptomatic so those people won’t be going forward for tests and won’t know they are spreading the virus inadvertently.
“It is a really important aspect alongside the hands, face, space measures, even if you have had a vaccination. All of those measures together will allow us to really get on top of this, which we have done all the way through.”
Lateral flow tests will be provided at a centre for the workers twice a week, every 3 to 5 days, to catch further cases of the virus.
Those eligible for the frontline testing include those who have to leave their homes for work and where there is a higher risk of exposure or potential for mixing between household groups, such as retail staff and construction workers.
A booking system will be set up to allow people to turn up and take their test which will return their results in 30 minutes.
John Metcalfe, chief executive of the Isle of Wight Council, warned case numbers may appear to be rising with the lateral flow tests but that will not be a bad thing as it will mean the tail of the infection will be shorter, stopping the pandemic sooner.
He said the community testing will allow key workers some security when they go about their job and when they go home and he encouraged everybody who is eligible to take advantage of the tests and ‘really stick’ to the scheme.
As another tool in the council’s toolbox against COVID-19, Councillor Dave Stewart, leader of the council, said the community testing was almost ‘hunting down the virus’ to help the Island move forward.
The community testing will also work alongside other testing programmes rolled out by the Department for Health and Social Care including testing for schools and adult social care frontline staff.
Introducing these tests for frontline workers is a good move. What is Dave Stewart’s plan to stop people from the mainland booking a holiday for their families at half term and travelling over here??? It is happening. A lady wrote an article in this week’s County Press detailing a mainland family trying to book her holiday accommodation online for half term. The owner of the property refused the booking. Well done. How many more will accept a booking and the money????? The island needs to stay safe and not have the number of infections rising again.
all it does is inconvenience the hard workers more – how about you pester all the pensioners at home to get tested every five minutes.
Just make sure that teachers and supermarket staff are at the front of the queue!!!