By Mass testing for students before Christmas?
A week of mass testing for students is proposed that overlaps with the end of the lockdown – between 30 November and 6 December.
The letter, seen by the BBC, promises a fast turnaround for tests and “results within an hour”.
The aim is to stop students spreading the virus as they return home.
This week could then become the “window” at the start of December for students to leave university for the Christmas holidays.
There are 1.2 million students expected to move at Christmas from a university to a home in another part of the country.
This has raised concerns among the Sage scientific advisers that this migration could spread the coronavirus.
So plans are being made for rapid, mass testing, using so-called “lateral flow tests”.
These are nose and throat swab tests, which are self-administered, with no need for tests to be sent to laboratories for results.
The letter from Universities Minister Michelle Donelan, and its accompanying documents, says: “The tests we are deploying have a high specificity which means the risk of false positive test results is low.
“Although the test does not detect all positive cases, it works extremely well in finding cases with higher viral loads – which is those who are most infectious.
“As the test is easy to administer and does not require a laboratory, testing can take place on a very regular basis,” the letter to university leaders said.
The test kits will be given free to universities, which will have to provide a place for the tests to be carried out, in a way that can process thousands of students within a short time frame.
This could mean that by about 9 December, many students will have left for Christmas – but not those who have positive tests.
They will have to remain and isolate.
