Covid: Residents welcome surge testing amid variant 'concern'

Completed tests will be collected and analysed in a laboratory

Residents have expressed concern at the spread of the South African coronavirus variant but welcomed enhanced testing.

Swabs are being offered to about 80,000 people in eight areas across Surrey, London, Kent, Hertfordshire, Southport and Walsall.

Robyn Brunskill, from Woking, in Surrey, said news the variant had been found in people with no links to foreign travel was "quite concerning".

"That makes you worry about where it's coming from," she said.

Volunteers were aiming to reach 3,000 people in Woking on Tuesday, with 9,500 swabs expected to be delivered in the GU21 postcode area this week, Surrey County Council said.

Volunteers were aiming to deliver about 3,000 test kits in Woking on Tuesday

Mother-of-two Teresa Miller, who is still recovering from having earlier had coronavirus, said: "I think it's a good idea to get it under control, obviously, as soon as possible just so we can go back to normal.

Ms Miller, also from Woking, added: "Obviously it's important that everyone gets tested and if it keeps it away, then that's even better."

Peter Rice, 74, was one of the first to receive one of the at-home test kits in Maidstone, Kent.

Asked if the presence of the South African variant made him feel worried, he said: "It does and it doesn't. It's all over the place."

Mr Rice, who recently had the Covid jab, said he believed enhanced testing should have begun "a lot sooner".

Samples will be collected door-to-door and analysed in a laboratory

Andrew Scott-Clark, Kent County Council's director of public health, said about 4,500 residents would be tested in parts of the ME15 postcode area.

The purpose of the PCR testing is not just to find Covid cases but "probably more importantly to sequence that virus to make sure we know what variant of the virus is circulating locally".

In all of the targeted areas, random checks have found cases of the South African variant that could not be linked to international travel through contact tracing.

"The important thing for people to note is that we have only seen one case of this South African variant in this local population," Mr Scott-Clark said.