By Coronavirus testing extended to everyone 5 and over
Today, Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced that everybody in the UK who is aged 5 and over, who has symptoms of coronavirus, is now eligible for testing.
Speaking in parliament, Mr Hancock said that the government was “expanding eligibility for testing further than ever before”.
He added 100,678 tests had been conducted on Sunday.
Previously, testing in England and Scotland has been limited to people with symptoms who are key workers and their families, hospital patients, care home residents, over-65s and those who need to leave home to work.
In Wales and Northern Ireland it was just key workers, hospital workers and care home residents.
A further 160 coronavirus deaths have been recorded in the UK as of 17:00 BST on Sunday taking the total to 34,796.
The UK has the highest figure of deaths in Europe.
Mr Hancock also said that 21,000 people had been recruited to conduct contact-tracing in England, including 7,500 healthcare workers.
“Over the past seven weeks this country has taken a small specialised diagnostics industry and scaled it at breathtaking pace into a global champion,” he continued.
Shadow health and social care secretary Jonathan Ashworth pressed the government on the time taken for results to be received on whether someone had Covid-19 or not.
He also asked if facilities could be set up in order to allow poorer people to be able to self-isolate if they are required to do so and whether those in insecure work would be guaranteed sick pay if they were asked to isolate.
Contact Gi National
Email us: news@gi-media.co.uk
