LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s government said it was expanding a pilot programme for daily COVID-19 testing to a wider range of key employers, in a bid to reduce staff absence caused by an ongoing wave of the pandemic.
Under current British government guidance, close contacts of people who test positive for COVID-19 are strongly advised to self-isolate for 10 days, unless they can take part in a daily COVID tests to confirm that they too are not infected.
“In addition to critical staff working in prisons, defence and waste collection, people working in energy, pharmaceuticals, telecoms, chemicals, communications, water, space, fish, veterinary medicine and HMRC (tax office) will also be prioritised for the 1,200 new daily contact testing sites,” the health ministry said in a statement.
(Reporting by David Milliken; Editing by Chris Reese)
