Health Secretary for England Matt Hancock is to make a Covid announcement in the House of Commons on Tuesday on the day that door to door testing begins in some parts of the country.
A door-to-door testing blitz of 80,000 people in England is aiming to find “every single case” of the South Africa coronavirus variant in a bid to stop the spread of the more infectious strain.
Eleven cases of the variant identified over the past week were in people who had no links to travel, prompting concerns the mutation may be spreading in communities.
Mobile testing units and home testing kits will be deployed to areas where the variant has been discovered as the UK Government looks to prevent it getting a foothold.
Mr Hancock told a Downing Street press conference on Monday: “It’s a big effort getting this new variant … essentially finding every single case of it, that is the goal.”
Mr Hancock said the the door-to-door testing regime, along with enhanced contact tracing efforts, was an attempt to “come down on it hard”.
It was “absolutely vital” that people minimise all social contact in the areas where South African cases had been identified, he added.
The announcement in the House of Commons is expected at 1.30pm.
