Graham Stuart MP welcomes new Covid-19 Humber Bridge site after having pushed Ministers for more testing

Graham Stuart, MP for Beverley and Holderness, has welcomed the new drive-through coronavirus testing site, which has been established at the car park at the northern side of the Humber Bridge.

The site, which opened on 24th April, has been testing NHS staff and other key workers for Covid-19 if they or any members of their household are showing symptoms of the virus. It has come following confirmation from the Government that all essential workers, and members of their households, are able to directly book a test online – either at one of the drive-through sites or using a delivered home test.

Tens of thousands of tests have been booked in the first few days of the programme, including 16,000 tests on the first day of the online portal opening.

Negative results will allow employees to return to work so that vital services like public transport, grocery deliveries, and social care are able to continue as uninterrupted as possible. Positive results, meanwhile, will confirm the need to self-isolate until further tests prove workers are no longer infectious, so as to prevent the wider spread of coronavirus – particularly important for those who work with vulnerable people.

It is part of the Government’s proposed 5-point plan to significantly increase testing across the country, led by the Health Secretary, so that testing is expanded from critical NHS staff and hospital patients to all NHS staff, then to all key workers, and finally to the wider population.

The Government plan is to increase testing to 100,000 by the end of the month. It centres around boosting NHS capacity to 25,000 tests a day in addition to working with industry partners such as Boots-Amazon-ThermoFisher, AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline and increasing surveillance testing at the Government’s Porton Down laboratory.

Graham said, “We know that testing is absolutely key to defeating coronavirus as it strengthens our understanding of Covid-19, meaning we can make better decisions about social distancing measures and isolate the virus more effectively, as well as helping to keep our brave key workers and vulnerable people safe.

“I’ve been regularly reiterating the importance of testing care home staff and residents to Ministers, so I’m delighted that this site is helping key workers in my constituency. After seeking updates I’m told that it has been operating very successfully, carrying out hundreds of tests a day, including over 700 this Sunday.

“The Government has also launched three ‘Lighthouse Labs’ in just five weeks, which all have the capacity to test tens of thousands of samples each day, adding extra capacity to the dozens of drive-through sites across the country.”

There are two types of test currently being ramped up by the Government. Swab tests check for the presence of Covid-19, while antibody tests check for the presence of antibodies and therefore the likelihood of greater immunity.