SCHOOL kids and teachers will get weekly coronavirus swabs as part of a £500 million drive to get Britain back to normal.
Regular checks for the virus could be rolled out to everyone by winter using spit tests which give rapid results and could prevent further infections by quickly isolating cases.
The new technology avoids the uncomfortable swab tests, which have to go to the back of the throat and up the nose, and instead uses saliva.
It would mean people can get an almost on-the-spot result and immediately know if they need to isolate from other people, instead of having to wait as long as 3 days for test results.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock told Times Radio this morning he hoped mass testing would be the norm by the end of the year.
He added: “This is about giving people the confidence of having a negative test as well as of course finding the virus
“Until now our testing program has been focused on finding the virus for a clinical need… we also can use testing once we have this rapid turn-around (test) to give people confidence that they can go around their normal business.”
He stressed community wide testing which could be used for shoppers and commuters, was one of the tools to keep the nation out of a second lockdown.
As part of the trial of the new technology, 2,100 school teachers and students in Southampton will be tested weekly, along with University of Southampton staff and pupils.
These tests could eventually be rolled out to schools around the country to stop entire classes having to self-isolate if a child shows a symptom.
There are fears university students flocking into campuses around the country could cause a surge in infections.
Mass testing will also be piloted in Salford, rolling out weekly swabs for hundreds of people who pass through shops, transport hubs, public services and places of worship
Ministers are hoping mass testing could help get the country back to normal by ensuring all new infections are tightly controlled and millions of people can safely return to offices, events and sport fixtures while the world waits for a vaccine.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock said: “Testing is a vital line of defence in combatting this pandemic.”
He said the new tests would get the UK closer to rolling out community tests which “can help suppress the virus and enable more of the things that make life worth living.”
He said: “We are backing innovative new tests that are fast, accurate and easier to use will maximise the impact and scale of testing, helping us to get back to a more normal way of life.”
The Government has been under pressure to roll out mass testing for months.
Professor Alan McNally, from the University of Birmingham, said scaling up of testing should have been done over the summer.
When asked about the new trials to change testing, he told BBC Radio 4: “I don’t think the time is right, I think the time was right to think about scaling up testing to the wider community and asymptomatic testing over the summer when we were relatively Covid-secure, knowing that autumn and winter would come.”
He added: “Ideally we would be far more advanced in our ability to handle what we’re already beginning to see, an increase in requirement for Covid testing and respiratory infection testing.
