Covid testing centres to be moved around the county

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Friday, 20 November 2020 14:33

By Carmelo Garcia - Local Democracy Reporter

Herefordshire’s Covid-19 testing centres will be moved to areas that see an increase in cases.

Public health bosses initially said their intention would be to deploy a testing centre in each of the market towns as well as Hereford.

But it appears there has been a change in approach and now the units will be moved to where they are needed most.

The testing centre at Merton Meadow in Hereford will remain in situ but the testing unit in Leominster is understood to be relocating to Ledbury.

And the recently deployed testing unit in South Wye has been relocated from its previous site at The Larruperz in Ross-on-Wye.

Herefordshire public health director Karen Wright said: “At the moment we have access to the three mobile testing units for Herefordshire.

“There’s no reason why we would ever move Merton Meadow because it is well used, and we would encourage more people to go for testing.

“We’ve got the one we’ve moved from Ross to South Wye and then there’s one in Leominster.

“We are working on having a bit more moving testing service to make sure we’ve got access across the county and are responding to situations.

“If people go on to book a test it will send you to a place where you can get tested.

“We can move the testing centres around with a 24 to 48-hour notice.

“At the moment we won’t have testing centres in all of the towns, but we will get it moving around so there is access in all of the towns.

“It’s foolhardy to move a centre to somewhere where you don’t have cases and move it away from an area where you have.

“There are also home tests for anyone who needs them.”

Ms Wright said health experts were concerned about the increase in cases in south Hereford.

She said they have seen evidence of household to household transmission.

“There is an increase overall in the whole city.

“If people are in a bubble with someone and are providing support for them it’s really important that they follow the hands, space, face guidance.

“If not, we are putting people in risk that we don’t need to.”

“We would also like to encourage people who have been identified as contacts of a Covid-19 positive case to get tested.

“We urge people in South Wye to use that centre if they have symptoms and it is a drive through or walk through offer.

“But people should only use it as a walk-through offer if they may have been a contact and have concerns.”

“If anyone has got any symptoms, we urge them to go and get tested and if they could arrange for someone in their household to take them by car.”

There was a total of 370 positive cases in the seven days until November 14 in Herefordshire.

That means there are 191.9 cases per 100,000. Herefordshire is below average in terms of coronavirus case numbers.

There have been 2,191 confirmed cases in the county since the start of the pandemic.

With Herefordshire’s population at 192,214 as of 2019 that means roughly 1.14% of the population have had positive test result to date.

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