Everyone unable to work from home will now be offered a Covid test before setting off on jobs. The plan is to identify the one in three carriers who have the disease without knowing it and take them out of circulation.
From Monday community testing will be expanded to all of the nation’s 317 local authorities to regularly check people without symptoms.
Before Christmas the tests, which turn round results in 30 minutes, were only available in high risk areas. More than 100 local authorities are already carrying out the lateral flow tests with councils such as Essex and Milton Keynes pinpointing critical workers who must leave home for essential reasons.