Operation Moonshot: Covid mass-testing trial begins in Liverpool

The UK’s first mass-testing trial is under way in Liverpool as part of the government’s Operation Moonshot drive to test up to 10 million people a day.

Six new testing centres opened their doors to Liverpudlians at noon on Friday as the city’s health chief urged the city’s 500,000-strong population to volunteer for a coronavirus test over the next fortnight.

More than 50 people were in a queue for a 20-minute swab test at one of the sites shortly before it opened, according to reports. Joe Anderson, the Liverpool mayor, said: “This is an incredible opportunity to turbo charge our efforts to reduce coronavirus in the city.”

The pilot began amid confusion about whether NHS staff who do not show symptoms would be offered a saliva test as originally intended as part of the trial.

The OptiGene Lamp tests, for which the government has paid £323m, are separate to the nasal swab tests used by the public and there are questions about their accuracy. A trial in Greater Manchester found they missed half of infections, but the government said they had performed better in other pilots, without releasing the data.

Matt Ashton, Liverpool’s director of public health, said on Friday: “There are lots of different testing technologies coming onboard. The saliva one is the one that’s commonly referred to as Lamp testing but Lamp testing is not part of the Liverpool pilot.”

This appeared to contradict the Department of Health and Social Care, which had said the OptiGene Lamp test was being used as part of the trial by NHS staff at Liverpool University hospitals NHS foundation trust.

Speaking outside Liverpool Tennis Centre in Wavertree on Friday, where one of the test centres was being set up, Ashton said there was capacity for 85 facilities to be launched by the end of the scheme, which is due to last for an initial 10 days, but could be extended.

Significantly, people who do not have coronavirus symptoms are being urged to get tested. It is estimated that about one in four people who have the disease will never show symptoms, according to Bertie Squire, a professor of clinical tropical medicine at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.

Ashton said there had been a “strong, positive reaction” to the scheme so far and there was capacity to test everyone who wanted to be tested twice during the pilot period. About 2,000 military personnel have been deployed to the city to help.

Those who volunteer to be tested will be given a nasal self-swab known as a lateral flow test, which can give results in 20 minutes to half an hour. Those who test positive may have to take a second confirmatory test using the more commonly used PCR swab, which takes longer to process.

Liverpool council said this would help identify infectious people who were not displaying symptoms.

Squire welcomed the pilot but said it would be “meaningless” unless those who tested positive isolated properly.

He told BBC Radio 5 live: “For the next three, four weeks we’re going to go on seeing that NHS pressure, so this mass testing is about really longer-term making a difference. If the current lockdown brings numbers down then mass testing is a way of keeping them down.”