The UK government plans to test all Brits for coronavirus in the following weeks. The respective operation will end up costing £100 billion and in order to get things done, 10 million covid tests will be performed daily, which means it will take a week to test the entire UK population, that provided everything goes according to the plan.
The mass test bid is called Operation Moonshot and according to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, everything will be made possible due to a new test that will deliver more or less accurate results in approximately fifteen minutes.
Boris Johnson also said that Brits who receive a so-called freedom pass, i.e. they test negative for covid 19, will be allowed to live their lives like they did before covid. However, earlier on Thursday, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said that the new technology is not available yet:
“This is technology that, to be perfectly blunt, requires further development – there isn’t a certified test in the world that does this but there are people that are working on prototypes.”
“We know this isn’t simple to achieve, but we hope it will be possible through technology and new tests to have a test which works by not having to return the sample to a lab.”
By the end of October, Britain seeks to improve its testing capacity to half a million a day, from the current 300,000 a day, and as soon as the new “flash test” becomes available, the country will begin mass testing to everyone.
On Monday, Britain revealed its latest anti covid 19 measures, which include bans for groups of more than six people, diners and pub goers will be forced to provide their personal details (names, phone numbers) as they go out, as part of Britain’s track and trace extravaganza, a new so-called army of health and safety inspectors will be created by local authorities to enforce the new rules on places of business etc., the borders will be made “tighter”, and even night time curfews may be enforced on businesses on various areas of the country in the near future.
Boris Johnson also said in a Sky News interview that:
“Work is underway — and we will get on at pace until we get there, round the clock. We are hopeful this approach will be widespread by the spring.”
Photo Credit: REUTERS/Phil Noble