Southport will be excluded from Liverpool’s new mass testing program, despite previously being forced into tier-3 restrictions as part of the “Liverpool City Region”.
2,000 military personnel will descend on the city from Thursday to roll out a massive new testing program.
Everyone who lives or works in the city will be offered a test whether they have symptoms or not, with follow up test around 2 weeks afterwards.
The pilot aims to stop the spread of the virus by identifying as many infected people as possible.
Anyone who tests positive and contacts who are subsequently required to self-isolate will be entitled to the £500 Test and Trace Support payment.
The test will start this week and will include a mixture of swab testing and new lateral flow tests, which can provide a result within an hour without requiring the use of a lab.
Full details will be confirmed by Liverpool City Council this week. The tests will be rolled out to the wider city region if the trial is successful.
The government hopes the initiative will serve as a blueprint from a nationwide “rapid testing” program.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: “I want to thank the civic leaders of Liverpool for volunteering to join the UK’s first city-wide population testing pilot and the people of Liverpool for taking part.
“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.
“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.”
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