COMMUNITY Covid-19 testing services for key workers will be rolled out in Oxfordshire in early February.

Rapid lateral flow tests will be used to detect live virus in people with no symptoms who are highly infectious.

Results will be available in only 30 minutes, which means those who test positive can isolate quickly and tracing their contacts can reduce transmission of the virus 'significantly'.

The new service will be made available for people who have to leave their home to go to work during the third national lockdown.

The local initiative is in addition to existing lateral flow testing that has already been put in place nationally in settings such as care homes, hospitals and schools.

It will comprise those key workers not already included in the national initiative – starting with the police and fire service in early February.

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Then, it will gradually expand to other areas not covered by the national initiative.

Oxfordshire County Council is currently working with local authorities to set up community testing facilities in three locations – one in Oxford, Wantage and Banbury.

Ansaf Azhar, Oxfordshire County Council’s director of public health, commented on the rollout: "We are working closely with partners both locally and nationally to plan the effective rollout of community testing.

"We are liaising with the Department of Health and Social Care, and the military, and hope to start inviting key workers for a test from early February onwards.

"It is now believed that one in three people infected with Covid do not know that they have the virus.

"The rapid spread of the highly infectious new variant of coronavirus makes community testing for those who work outside the home an even greater priority.

"It will allow us to better identify asymptomatic carriers of the virus, and so help us more effectively control the virus and stop the spread."