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Glasgow Live
Glasgow Live
National
Holly Lennon

Glasgow community covid testing centres to close as Scotland enters 'transitional' phase

Community covid testing sites across Glasgow will be closing next week.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde have said that the asymptomatic facilities will close their doors on April 14.

As well as testing those without symptoms, the centres have also been offering free lateral flow testing kits to the public throughout the pandemic.

Anyone looking to pick up a test kit is being asked to do so before the centres - at Glasgow Central Station and Sauchiehall Street - close.

The UK Government testing sites for people who have covid symptoms and require a PCR will remain open until the end of the month.

The changes come after Scotland entered a 'transitional' phase which involves home testing kits becoming no longer available and rules around face coverings being lifted.

Speaking earlier this month, Nicola Sturgeon said: "Contact tracing of positive cases will also continue until end April, and PCR test sites will remain open during this period, though opening hours and locations may change during the transition.

"Though, as with all measures, we will keep this under review, our intention is that from end April all routine population-wide testing will end, including for those who have symptoms.

"Contact tracing will end at this point too - although people with symptoms of respiratory illness will be advised to stay at home. Physical test sites will close at the end of April - although mobile testing units and lab capacity will be retained for our longer term testing purposes.

"We will do everything we can to support those who have worked on the testing programme during the transition. I want to thank all of them for their invaluable contribution over the last two years.

"From May 1, instead of a population wide approach, we will use testing on a targeted basis - to support clinical care and treatment and protect higher risk settings; and for surveillance, outbreak management and responding to significant developments, such as a new variant.

"Let me stress that for any purpose for which we continue to advise testing, access to tests will, in Scotland, remain free of charge."

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