People queued for Covid tests in Liverpool as the first trial of city-wide testing in England got under way
LONDON, Nov 7 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Liverpool began England’s first city-wide trial of coronavirus testing in an attempt to prevent hospitals becoming overwhelmed during the country’s second wave of the pandemic.
All of the northwestern city’s 500,000 residents, as well as people working there, will be offered repeat tests, even if asymptomatic, under the pilot trial, which will initially run for two weeks.
Hundreds of soldiers took over a local holiday park, some of the 2,000 armed forces personnel called in to support the testing drive.
Jurgen Klopp, the German manager of the Liverpool football team, urged people in a Twitter video message to get tested, saying “let’s do it for Liverpool”.
“It’s a big day, I hope,” he told a news conference. “We try to do everything to make the people aware of the big opportunity we got.
“It’s a big step to save our loved ones, friends, colleagues, everybody. I really hope as many people as possible use the opportunity.”
Liverpool last month became the first English city to enter the highest level of regional restrictions as it battled a spike in cases, followed by nearby Manchester.
A month-long nationwide lockdown then came into force on Thursday after cases began to spiral in all parts of England.
Liverpool mayor Joe Anderson, whose brother died of Covid-19 last month, said the pilot alone would not be the panacea, but “a tool in the armoury”.
“It will help us start to control better than we currently are,” he said.
Some residents began to arrive at the Liverpool Tennis Centre, one of six new testing facilities set up in the city, ahead of its midday opening.
Claire Graves, 45, a lecturer, said she had turned up for a test for her own safety and “the safety of the city”.
Another 23,287 people in Britain have tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the total number of coronavirus cases in the country to 1,146,484, according to official figures released Friday.
The coronavirus-related deaths in Britain rose by 355 to 48,475, the data showed. — NNN-AGENCIES
