Preston's new Covid testing facility goes full-time - but asymptomatic tests aren't on offer

The community testing station at Preston Market has already shut, while the one in Moor Park will cease operation on Sunday.

The Post can reveal that there will be no gap between the closure of the walk-in facilities and the full-time operation of a new semi-permanent site at UCLan’s Vernon car park.

That unit – on Berkeley Street - is now running seven days a week, having originally started out as a part-time pop-up facility. However, slots are available only via appointment and for people with symptoms.

Residents in Preston have been actively encouraged to get tested - even if they do not have symptoms - since the city hit a spike in coronavirus cases late in the summer.

However, it emerged earlier this week that Lancashire was having to shut down its community testing facilities, because the government said it would no longer be possible for the county to order the type of kits on which the facilities relied.

Lancashire’s director of public health said he regretted that the capacity for asymptomatic testing was not currently available – and that he would be continuing to press for it to be reintroduced.

“The way the [national] system is operating, it looks like people won’t be able to book a test if they’re not symptomatic – so the message is that it’s not going to be available in Lancashire for now, at least until we have had some clarity nationally,” Dr. Sakthi Karunanithi explained.

“The virus and the epidemiology hasn’t changed much – so asymptomatic cases are always there.

“There is still some asymptomatic testing, for instance in care homes – but we do need more.”

Research just published by University College London shows that, between April and June, only 14 percent of people who tested positive for coronavirus as part of the Office for National Statistics’ Covid survey, had any of the main symptoms of the disease on the day of their test. Just 23 percent were experiencing any symptoms at all.

Appointments can be booked at gov.uk/get-coronavirus-test or by calling 119.