Get tested without delay, health chiefs urge Londoners in areas affected by South African variant of Covid

Londoners in surge testing areas to combat the South African variant of Covid-19 were today urged to get tested “as soon as possible”.

Professor Kevin Fenton, the capital’s head of public health, issued the request as more testing sites were open in south London.

More than half a million adults received tests, including 264,000 in Lambeth, 265,000 in Wandsworth and 14,800 in the SE16 areas of Southwark.

Around 44 confirmed cases of the variant have been found in Lambeth and Wandsworth, with a further 30 probable cases, as well as one case in Southwark’s Rotherhithe ward, health chiefs say.

Professor Fenton, London director for Public Health England, said: “We’ve had a huge response so far in Lambeth, Wandsworth and Southwark, with thousands of people coming in to have their PCR tests.

“This effort is making a real difference, enabling us to quickly identify any new cases of the variant and help prevent further transmission, so it remains vital that anyone who has not yet been tested comes forward as soon as possible.”

Some Londoners had to wait up to two hours for tests and the number of key test sites in Wandsworth was doubled today.

However, one of the district’s MPs, health spokeswoman Dr Rosena Allin-Khan, raised concerns about the “appalling” surge testing system, which is run by Test and Trace.

She said the only site in her Tooting constituency was testing fewer than 700 people a day – despite the area having a population of around 105,000.

She said people queuing for a test were handed kits and asked to swab themselves while they queued. Dr Allin-Khan said this was “shocking” and would result in many invalid tests.

She tweeted: “I was alarmed to hear that the system of recording people taking each test is not working so there is no way to automatically track people. Instead, people are given a barcode and told to call 119 to record the test themselves. The automated system must be configured. Urgent.”

Wandsworth Council said it was “grateful” to the thousands of residents who came forward to be tested. He admitted the scale of the response led to “frustrating” expectations for many people. As a result, three more testing sites are opening today and 23 pharmacies are taking bookings for PCR tests.

The new test sites are at Putney Leisure Center and Fernlea Road and Patmore Street car parks. There are already sites at Minstead Gardens, Roehampton, Tooting Leisure Center and Wandsworth Town Hall car park. There are also 10 testing sites in Lambeth, including Brixton town hall, Brockwell Park and Clapham Common.

People aged 11 and over who live, work or travel through those areas are urged to take a PCR test in addition to the twice-weekly rapid test. Local restrictions may be imposed in London if surge tests fail to stop the spread of the South African variant of Covid-19, a leading disease expert has suggested. Professor John Edmunds, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told ITV’s Peston: “If these mass testing events don’t work so well… then we may have to impose some kind of restrictions local. back to their place and nobody wants to do it.”

However, public health chiefs do not expect restrictions to be imposed in the near future. Asked why people aren’t being told to stay at home, Professor Fenton told Radio 4’s Today: “The level of infection we have now in the city is actually quite low.

“So the combination of factors, where we are in the pandemic phase and the level of infections that we have, really means that we can allow people to continue to move.”

A senior government source expressed confidence that the London outbreak of the South African variant was under control, adding: “There is no exponential growth in the new variant at present.”

Last night surge testing was extended to more than 120 streets in the N3 postcode area of ​​Finchley after another case of the South African variant was found. Genomic sequencing results indicate this case is not linked to the south London cluster, Barnet council says.

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