Latest updates: Rising number of false positives means officials consider scaling back mass testing of asymptomatic people, leaked emails show
- Rapid testing in England may be scaled back over false positives
- Variant first detected in India is found in the UK
- Workers in insecure jobs twice as likely to die of Covid, research finds
- Global coronavirus updates – live
11.51am BST
These are the latest Covid numbers in London from City Hall. On Tuesday it was announced that surge testing would be carried out in Lambeth and Wandsworth in south London after 44 confirmed cases and 30 further probable cases of Covid involving the “South Africa variant” were found, largely in these areas. According to the Department of Health and Social Care, a case detected in Southwark was linked to the clusters in nearby Lambeth and Wandsworth.
We are providing daily updates on #COVID19 in London.
On 15 April the daily number of new people who tested positive for COVID-19 in London was reported as 315. The latest reported number of patients in London hospitals was 513.
Full update here: https://t.co/d3A29xu27a
11.36am BST
Update: Paul Hunter (see his earlier comments here), a professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia, has said it is “not surprising” that the variant has come from India.
He said:
If you think about where the main variants have arisen – South Africa, the UK, California, Brazil, and now India – all of these are countries that have really struggled to keep case numbers down. So it’s not surprising. India has got a huge pandemic, and therefore that’s where you’re going to be getting the variant. The big, big anxiety with this one is that it seems – and again this is still a little bit speculative because it hasn’t been confirmed – but … there are two mutations here that are causing people to be concerned.
Continue reading… Source: The Guardian: UK Covid live: government officials voice ‘urgent’ concerns over rapid testing ———