More mass testing stations to open in Liverpool

Liverpool, Nov 28 The Liverpool City Council has announced that eight temporary "pop-up" testing sites will be set up during the weekend for people without Covid-19 symptoms as part of a campaign focusing on areas where there has been a relatively low take-up of tests.

"This is about taking the program out into the community to venues that are familiar to local people... The more people who get tested, the more chance we have of continuing the decline in positive cases we have seen in recent weeks, which has led to us being placed in Tier Two," Xinhua news agency quoted Liverpool Mayor Joe Anderson as saying.

Liverpool, the first British city to conduct mass testing for Covid-19, will lower its restriction tier level to Tier Two next week, UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock said on Thursday.

Cautiously welcoming the "Christmas gift", Anderson has warned that there is no room for complacency although the virus is in remission in the city.

On November 6, the UK government launched its first mass Covid-19 testing project in Liverpool in an effort to stem the virus transmission in the city.

According to a statement posted on the website of the Liverpool City Council on Friday, testing up to November 24 show that the total number of confirmed cases for the last seven days is 573, a decrease of 568 cases on the previous week.

The latest weekly rate of Covid-19 in Liverpool is 115.1 per 100,000 population and the latest positivity testing rate is 1.7 per cent.

As of Saturday, the UK has reported a total of 1,593,248 coronavirus cases and 57,648 deaths.

( With inputs from IANS )