Rapid Covid testing to be rolled out to cities including London, Manchester and Birmingham

Mass coronavirus testing of the kind trialled in Liverpool over recent days is being rolled out to cities including London, Manchester and Birmingham after the UK recorded its highest daily death toll from the disease since mid-May.

Matt Hancock, the health secretary, named 67 local council areas in England which will be sent enough rapid-turnaround kits for 10 per cent of their population each week.

The move signalled that Boris Johnson wants no let-up in his Operation Moonshot drive to stem the second wave of coronavirus through mass testing, despite the announcement that a vaccine could be available by the end of the year.

Plans have also emerged for mass testing of university students in England in the week beginning 30 November, to allow them to travel home safely for Christmas with families.

A letter from universities minister Michelle Donelan to higher education leaders said tests would be quick and easy to administer and would deliver low levels of false-positive results.

On Tuesday, 532 coronavirus deaths were recorded – the largest daily death toll for six months. There were 20,412 positive infections and more than 13,000 patients in hospital.

Meanwhile, the government has made nearly £43bn available for companies to help deliver the prime minister’s promise of “millions” of tests a day to enable the rapid identification of asymptomatic Covid carriers.

The figure includes a contract worth almost £1bn for supply of lateral flow tests of the kind used in Liverpool, as well as a Public Health England tender worth up to £22bn for testing equipment and another of up to £20bn from NHS Supply Chain for point-of-care tests and diagnostic equipment.

Together, the multi-year contracts represent three times the annual police budget for England and Wales, though Department of Health sources stressed that not all the money would necessarily be spent.

The rollout of lateral flow tests is taking place despite signs of difficulties scaling up operations in Liverpool to the 50,000 a day needed to meet ambitious targets to test the entire population in a fortnight.

Some 23,170 people were tested over the first three days following the opening of the first six centres in the city on Friday, with just 154 – 0.7 per cent – told to self-isolate after testing positive for Covid-19.

A further 12 sites have opened, with more to follow, after queues of 45 minutes or more developed on the first day as military personnel joined the effort to supply tests.

A total of more than 600,000 test kits are being sent this week to London boroughs as well as Covid hotspot areas in the northwest, midlands and Yorkshire, with councils promised enough further supplies to test 10 per cent of their residents a week. The government has also committed to providing devolved administrations with allocations of kits to ramp up testing in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The pregnancy-style kits can deliver a result within 20 minutes, which it is hoped will drive down delays in telling infected people and their close contacts to self-isolate.

The rollout of the tests is not expected to lead to entire populations being tested within 10 weeks, as priority and high-risk groups are likely to be tested repeatedly, while others will be hard to reach. Individual councils are being given the flexibility to decide how to deploy supplies and who to test, depending on local circumstances.

Mr Hancock said: “Last week we rolled out mass testing in Liverpool using new, rapid technology so we can detect this virus quicker than ever before, even in people who don’t have symptoms. Mass testing is a vital tool to help us control this virus and get life more normal.

“I am delighted to say 10,000 of these tests will now be sent out by NHS Test and Trace to over 50 directors of public health as part of our asymptomatic testing strategy. I want to thank all directors of public health for their support and efforts over the past months to help us tackle this virus, bring it under control and get the country back to what we love doing.”

The City of Wolverhampton Council welcomed the announcement of rapid-turnaround tests.

Public health director John Denley said the city “expressed an interest” in bringing testing to Wolverhampton after observing results of the Liverpool pilot and said tests would be provided “in the coming days”.

Meanwhile, Johnny McMahon, of Staffordshire County Council, said: “We are committed to taking every opportunity to stop the spread of infection.

“By widening our offer of testing, we can identify more people who have the virus and need to self-isolate, which in turn stops the spread of infection and reduces the number of cases.”