Coronavirus testing to be expanded in Scotland

Coronavirus testing is to be extended in Scotland, with more tests in care homes and a widening of eligibility, the first minister has announced.

In future all residents and staff will be tested in any care home where there has been an outbreak.

Over 65-year-olds with symptoms and their households will now be eligible for the UK-wide test scheme.

Nicola Sturgeon said Scotland now has capacity to carry out 4,350 coronavirus tests a day in NHS laboratories.

The Scottish government had previously set a target of 3,500 NHS tests a day by the end of April.

The first minister also said 40 people who had tested positive for Covid-19 had died in the past 24 hours, taking total deaths under that measure to 1,515.

The total number of confirmed cases now stands at 11,654, up 301 from Thursday. A total of 1,809 patients are in hospital, up 61, with 110 treated in intensive care, up one.

Two testing schemes are operating in parallel in Scotland - NHS testing and a UK government drive-through scheme that is operating at Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen airports as well as sites in Inverness and Perth.

Applications for the UK government scheme are made through an online portal, but as the health service is devolved it is up to the Scottish government to lay down the eligibility criteria.

The first minister said the NHS laboratory testing capacity had risen from 350 a day before the outbreak to the current level of 4,350. She hopes it will rise to 6,500 by the end of next week, and 8,000 by mid-May.

The Lighthouse laboratory at Glasgow University, working mainly for the UK-wide scheme, is now capable of processing 4,000 tests a day from drive-through test centres and mobile testing units which are being rolled out across Scotland.

The two schemes have a current total capacity of 8,350. On Thursday, a total of 4,661 tests were carried out.

Ms Sturgeon said the Scottish government would undertake "advanced outbreak investigation" at care homes reporting cases of Covid-19.

The investigation will involve testing of all residents and staff regardless of symptoms.

If a care home is part of a chain where staff move between homes, testing will be carried out in the linked institutions.

Ms Sturgeon also said there will be sample testing done in homes where no cases have been reported.

However, she added: "This should not simply be an exercise in driving up numbers.

"Tests, particularly for older people can be invasive and unpleasant, so our decisions about testing must always be clinically driven."

People who are aged over 65 and their households can now apply for testing under the UK government scheme via its application website if they have Covid-19 symptoms.

Ms Sturgeon said these tests would also be available for non-key workers who are required to leave home for work, and are showing symptoms.

However, she added: "I stress there shouldn't be many people in this group."

Similar changes were announced in England earlier in the week by UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock, but had not applied to testing centres in Scotland.

Scottish Conservative leader Jackson Carlaw said the Scottish government was "still lagging well behind on testing".

He said care workers who look after vulnerable people in the community should be given equal access to tests.

Scottish Labour Leader Richard Leonard said: "The expansion of testing in care homes announced today is welcome but should have been put in place weeks ago, as we knew that workers and residents in care homes would be at greatest risk."

The tests currently being offered are PCR tests, which can tell if someone currently has Covid-19.

Health Secretary Jeane Freeman said the technology was now available to carry out antibody testing which will give an indication of how many people have had the disease but perhaps only experienced mild symptoms.

Ms Freeman said work would begin next week at a laboratory in Inverness testing blood samples selected randomly from across the Scottish population.

This work was being carried out for surveillance purposes, she said, to better inform the government's response to the pandemic.

The first minister told the daily briefing she believes Scotland is not yet past the "danger point" of the virus.

She added: "That light at the end of the tunnel is there but we'll only keep it there if we keep doing the things that we're asking people to do."

Nicola Sturgeon has exceeded her target for testing capacity in Scotland.

But just over half of that total capacity in Scotland is being used, so the Scottish government is now expanding eligibility for testing to try to use more of the tests that are available.

This brings us closer to the situation in England, which earlier this week announced a large expansion in people eligible for testing.

There are some differences. Unlike in England, Scottish care workers will not be eligible unless they have symptoms or work in a care home which has a coronavirus case. However, some "sampling testing" will still be done in homes which are believed to be free of the virus.

Ministers also want to keep expanding capacity as they develop plans for a test, trace, isolate strategy for when lockdown measures start to be lifted.

Scotland as a whole can now contribute a population share of the UK-wide target of 100,000 tests per day.

How it uses those tests will be crucial in the next stage of battling the epidemic.