UK takes series of measures to ramp up Corona testing

The United Kingdom yesterday laid out a series of measures to be put in place to ramp up testing for the Novel Corona virus as the daily COVID-19 hospital death toll spiked by 616 to hit a total of 18,738.

UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock said that though the daily rise in the toll was lower than previous days, it was important not to forget any one of the victims of the virus and continue to strictly follow the social distancing norms in place to control its spread.

The minister, who has set a 100,000 Corona virus tests to be



carried out daily by the end of this month, said that testing capacity has increased to 51,000 a day as he laid out a test, track and trace formula to be applied as the lockdown measures are gradually eased across the country.

Mr Hancock said, the government is putting the infrastructure in place to be prepared to roll out contact tracing, or someone's exposure to the virus, on a large scale when it is time and a new National Health Service (NHS) contact tracing smartphone app is also being tested for that purpose.