Britain will conduct its first coronavirus testing on a citywide scale in Liverpool, a city of half a million people in northern England that has been among the country’s worst-hit areas.
Everyone working or living in the city will be offered tests, even if they are asymptomatic, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Tuesday, days after announcing a monthlong nationwide lockdown set to begin this week.
The testing in Liverpool — in workplaces, schools and universities, and hospitals and nursing homes — will begin on Friday, a day after nonessential business and pubs and restaurants across the country will be forced to close.
Liverpool has reported over 410 weekly cases per 100,000 inhabitants, one of the highest numbers in the country. “These tests will help identify the many thousands of people in the city who don’t have symptoms but can still infect others without knowing,” Mr. Johnson said in a statement. He added that millions of additional tests could be distributed elsewhere in Britain if the results are conclusive in Liverpool.
Britain has struggled to contain the spread of a virus that has claimed the lives of over 55,000, the highest toll in Europe. For months, Mr. Johnson has vowed to increase testing capacities and reach the threshold of 10 million people tested every day, but what he once described as a “world beating” test-and-trace program has remained riddled with delays, technical glitches and poorly trained contact tracers.
In other developments around the world:
Spain’s northern region of Castile and León on Tuesday ordered all bars and restaurants to close, and joined the growing chorus of regions urging the central government in Madrid to tighten the country’s lockdown rules. On Monday, the leader of Asturias, another northern region, asked the central government to order a 15-day full lockdown, but the idea was rejected by Salvador Illa, Spain’s health minister, who said that the central government had no plan to force people to stay indoors again, as it did in the spring.
Hong Kong will require all travelers arriving from anywhere outside mainland China to quarantine for 14 days at a hotel starting Nov. 13, and to present confirmation of a hotel room reservation in the city for the entire period, the government said Tuesday. “In view of the severe global pandemic situation, Hong Kong cannot afford to drop its guard on entry prevention and control measures,” a government spokesman said. The Chinese territory reported nine new coronavirus cases on Tuesday, including two linked to a cluster from a “staycation” on a picturesque island.
— Elian Peltier, Raphael Minder and Elaine Yu The New York Times