Coronavirus latest news: Screen schoolchildren using 90 minute test to keep them safe says Sir John

Rapid tests mean entire cities can be tested to halt outbreaks Plan to expand shielding to over-50s prompts fury Supermarket workers facing torrent of 'mask rage' Boris Johnson urged to introduce German-style airport testing 'Rash' northern lockdown based on inaccurate data, says expert Sign up to The Telegraph Global Health Security bulletin Two tests which can detect coronavirus and flu - and promise results in 90 minutes - are to be rolled out in hospitals, care homes and laboratories. The swab and DNA tests will help deal with the virus in winter, enabling clinicians and NHS Test and Trace to differentiate between Covid-19, which requires sufferers to undergo specific self-isolation, and other seasonal illnesses, the Department of Health said. But Sir John, Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford University, who is leading the government's ongoing search for a reliable antibody test, has said that the new quick turnaround tests should be used at schools. The leading immunologist told BBC Radio 4's The Today Programme that tests need to be used "more extensively by the private sector" as he said there was a "huge unmet need by schools, by airports and airlines" who could screen their workplaces as well as people before they entered the premises. 'If you look at schools there's going to be a huge interest in keeping them safe the best way to do that is to screen the children at some level," he said. When asked how frequently children should be tested he added: 'I think some people have said once a week should be okay but others have said less frequently. "For example, in boarding schools you could screen the kids when they came back from home and probably not screen them very often until they went home again and then screen them when they reentered the school because it acts as a large bubble.
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