DOOR-TO-DOOR coronavirus testing is launching in parts of England this week after reports of cases of the South African variant of the virus in eight areas of the country.

There have been reports of the new variant in Hertfordshire, Surrey, Kent, Walsall, Sefton and three London boroughs.

Just over 100 cases of the South African strain have been identified to date across the UK, but this is the first signal of wider community spread, with 11 total cases of the variant identified across England with no links to travel, and two positive cases of the strain – which have been worrying scientists – identified in people in Surrey with no links to travel or previous contact with those affected.

The director of public health for Hertfordshire has said they would be starting door-to-door testing this week after one case of the South African variant was found in the county.

Professor Jim McManus said the number of cases that had been detected across the country which were not linked to travel was still relatively small.

“We are talking less than 30, less than 20. It is not a massive number,” he told BBC Radio 4’s The World at One programme.

“We should bear in mind this was picked up by routine surveillance testing which is the reason why we are about to embark on this exercise so that we can find any more cases that are out there.”

Door-to-door coronavirus testing in part of Kent will also begin on Tuesday morning amid concerns over the South African coronavirus variant.

Kent County Council said the Government has asked for as many people as possible in the ME15 area to be tested following information that the variant may have been identified in the area in a resident who has no links to travel or other variant cases.

Households within the ME15 area will be visited by staff from Kent Police, Maidstone Borough Council, Kent Fire and Rescue and other support agencies, who will knock on their door and ask everyone aged 16 and over to carry out a PCR test there and then.
The test will then be picked up by the same team and sent for laboratory testing within a short time of the initial visit

Ealing Council has also asked residents living and working in parts of Hanwell and West Ealing to get a Covid-19 test, while Surrey County Council said the Surrey Local Resilience Forum is working with Public Health England (PHE) and the Department of Health to carry out a localised “surge testing” programme in the Goldsworth Park and St Johns areas of Woking..
Professor Adam Finn, a member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, has said the vaccines currently deployed across the UK are effective against the South African variant.

“It is clear from the evidence that we have got so far that that is still the case,” he told BBC Radio 4’s The World at One.

“It may be the case that they are just slightly less efficient than they are against the original Wuhan virus, but doesn’t mean that they are not useful.

“These vaccines are much more effective than we dared hope in the first place so some reduction in their efficiency is not a disaster. It is just making life more difficult.

“We do have to recognise that we are facing a very agile enemy.

“We have to up our game, get better and more efficient ways of tracking these new variants as they arrive.”