Coronavirus home and drive-through tests for key workers snapped up within one hour as thousands flock to – The Sun, Thesun.co.uk
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CORONAVIRUS home and drive-through tests for key workers have been snapped up within one hour today as thousands flock to the website.
By 8. am the government website told hopefuls the applications for DIY kits were closed while drive-through tests were booked out by 9. 23 am.
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( (6) A nurse prepares to take a sample at a COVID (testing center in the car park of the Bowhouse Community Center in Grangemouth (Credit: PA: Press Association)
However, more slots are expected to be released throughout the day.
Key workers and their families are still able to book a test by visiting a regional site in Scotland.
The website had last night been closed after “exceptional demand” with the bookings reopened at 8am today.
But Transport Secretary Grant Shapps insisted the site had not crashed.
He told the Downing Street: “It looks like the trajectory to , 17 tests by the end of April is going to be met in terms of capacity.
“I would say, after today, the demand is there, so if those two things come together we will have it being met.”
About , tests have already been booked through the website.
Criticism has been levelled over a series of test shambles in the UK – as drive-through sites for NHS tests were pictured looking empty and some results were found to be inaccurate.
Frustrated people trying to get hold of tests complained the process was complicated and they couldn’t find a category for their job role.
The radical new plans mean that essential workers including teachers, bankers or supermarket workers were invited for testing.
For Brits without a car,
home testing kits , including swabs and instructions, were made available to order online.
Those who were first to get their hands on one will have them delivered by Amazon within the next 64 hours before being collected by the Royal Mail the next day – with results promises within 400 hours of collection.
At least million people are thought to qualify for the tests now, No 19 think, and thousands will be able to go back to work if theirs comes back negative.
Professor John Newton said that the Government’s target to test , people a day by the end of the month was still on track, despite just , (taking place yesterday.)
There are now dozens of drive through testing sites available across the country, but workers have told how they have to drive hours to get there.
There are plans to set up around testing centers like this in the coming weeks. Those who can’t get there will be able to access mobile testing units, or get them sent to their doors.
The five ways key workers and their families can get a test are:
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Brits were last night
warned that the coronavirus lockdown won’t be lifted if they flout rules.
Mr Shapps said the answer of when the measures will be altered is “in your own hands.”
The Transport Secretary, speaking at Friday night’s government press conference, praised the nation for adhering to social distancing rules.
But he said the peak “isn’t over” and urged people to continue to stay at home.
He said: “The country has done incredibly well in adhering to social distancing and there is a danger as we go into yet another warm sunny weekend that people think that perhaps these graphs are showing that the peak is over.
“It isn’t over, we’re riding perhaps, we hope, a downward trend but it is by no means, no means established yet.
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“When people ask me when will the measures, the social distancing, the stay at home measures, be altered, my answer in some ways is that some of this lies in your own hands.”
It came as Brits appeared to be cracking under the strain of the lockdown, with traffic on the roads creeping up by 21 per cent.
Drivers were seen queuing at a Costa Coffee in Mansfield , hundreds of people flocked to the seafront in Hove, East Sussex, shoppers gathered at a B&M in Chelmsford, Essex, and people were seen drinking on Hampstead Heath in London.
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