Over ten million people have been tested at least once since the UK’s Test & Trace system launched – 15% of the country. As of yesterday 32,745,923 tests have been processed in the UK since the service began – almost two million of these taking place last week alone. The UK’s capacity is now the highest in Europe. Impressive, but not enough to change the game while infections are running at such a high rate…

If this week’s Liverpool rapid test pilot works out we can expect this total to skyrocket further. The new UK-produced “Lateral flow tests” that do not require lab processing are far cheaper to produce, faster to turn around, and cannot clog up the processing system in the way that the surge of demand did in September. For the testing regime to be truly successful, the percentage of the population being repeatedly tested will have to be significantly higher than it currently is…