Citizens in the United Kingdom will receive two at-home COVID-19 rapid tests per week starting this Friday.
The service, an extension of the government’s testing program, will provide a pair of tests, which can deliver results within 30 minutes. Citizens can pick them up at testing sites or pharmacies or receive them through the mail.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson is hoping frequent testing—even among people who show no symptoms—will prevent another surge as the U.K. begins to ease restrictions, opening pubs, restaurants, and nonessential shops starting April 12.
“As we continue to make good progress on our vaccine program and with our road map cautiously easing restrictions underway, regular rapid testing is even more important to make sure those efforts are not wasted,” Johnson said in a statement.
The plan isn’t gaining universal approval, though. Opponents say it could prove a “scandalous” waste of money. The U.K. has earmarked $51.5 billion for its National Health Service (NHS) Test and Trace program. Over $41 billion of that is expected to be used for testing.
The U.K.’s rapid vaccine rollout has been widely praised and has stoked hopes of an economic recovery in the country. To date, 37 million doses have been given, covering 27.6% of the population, according to the Bloomberg vaccine tracker. (Compare that with less than 10% across the European Union.)
Testing, if it’s taken advantage of, could continue to drive the infection numbers down.
The U.K. has had a particularly rough time with COVID-19. In the past 12 months, it has undergone three lockdowns, owing in part to a fast-spreading variant, which has spread across the globe. More than 100,000 people have died, and it has the highest per capita death toll of any large country, according to John Hopkins’s mortality analyses.
