Door-to-door testing for South African Covid-19 variant in Wooburn Green and Flackwell Heath completed

The recent door-to-door testing for the South African Covid-19 variant in Wooburn Green and Flackwell Heath has been completed.

Over the last six days, Buckinghamshire Council working in partnership with NHS Test and Trace, delivered 1,704 home testing kits to 1,094 households in Flackwell Heath. 96% of the home testing kits tests have now been sent off for testing.

In Wooburn Green, 2,950 tests were delivered to 2,527 households of which 95% have now been sent off for testing. In addition, over 1,428 people were tested at the mobile testing unit at Wooburn Green.

Dr Jane O’Grady, Director of Public Health in Buckinghamshire, said: ‘Firstly, I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who took the time out, to do their tests.

All positive Covid-19 tests from our targeted testing in Wooburn Green and Flackwell Heath will be sent for genomic sequencing. This will help us to understand the spread of Covid-19 variants locally.

People who test positive will be contacted by NHS test and trace in the normal way. Anyone with a positive test must self-isolate for 10 days following their notification.

All the tests that are positive will undergo genomic sequencing. Only people with the South African variant or any other specific variants of concern will be contacted.

The Health Protection team from Public Health England will contact these people directly to ask for more information to help enhanced contact tracing. At the moment genomic sequencing is taking a few weeks so people will not hear until after that.

The most important thing is that people continue to follow the guidance that is in place – limit your number of contacts, wash your hands regularly and thoroughly, keep your distance and cover your face. If you test positive by any method, you must isolate to stop the spread of the virus.‘

Gareth Williams, Cabinet Member for Communities and Public Health said: ‘I would like to thank the residents of Wooburn Green and Flackwell Heath for their support over the last six days and to everyone who has come forward to get tested. It was a huge effort by both local people and the team of volunteers who have been in the area to help get the testing done.‘

The national lockdown is still in place and residents must continue to stay at home unless you need to leave the house for essential reasons.

If you have to leave the home for work and do not have Covid-19 symptoms, you are advised to get a regular rapid symptom-free test. These are available at https://www.buckinghamshire.gov.uk/coronavirus/get-tested-for-covid-19/.

Anyone who has symptoms and wants to take a test is advised to visit https://www.gov.uk/get-coronavirus-test or call 119.

*Source of article : Press release from Buckinghamshire Council.