Hunt calls for more help for schools on testing

Godalming's MP, Jeremy Hunt, says he is 'very concerned' at the difficulty people in the area are facing in getting Covid-19 tests.

"While I appreciate that we have relatively few cases, they are rising - indeed we appear to have three times more live cases than a month ago," he wrote today in his Constituency Update.

He said the best way to beat the virus without a vaccine is to have an efficient test-and-trace system.

"We need to know who has the virus so that close contacts can be isolated quickly - given that about half of all transmission happens from people with no symptoms," he added.

Mr Hunt said he had heard from 'several' schools who had told him they were unable to get the tests they needed.

On Tuesday he asked Prime Minister Boris Johnson in the House of Commons what his message would be to schools struggling to obtain tests.

Acknowledging that "We have tripled capacity since May and will double it again by October," he asked the PM: "How can he reassure a school in my consituency which has a child that has tested postive but they only get a quota of 10 tests every three weeks, and they are worried that they may have people who are passing on the virus asymptomatically, that they're not able to identify?

"What would he say to them and to schools up and down the country that are trying so hard to do the right thing?"

Mr Johnsn replied that Mr Huunt had raised 'a very important point' about pupils but that the rate of transmission and infection among school pupils is "actually much lower than in the rest of the population".

"But I'm not going to hide it from him," he said, "that the future I see for our country, the way to defeat this virus, is massively to expand testing, not just for teachers, not just in schools, but throughout the country.

"I'm proud that NHS Test and Trace is now conducting more tests than any other country in Europe, and I think we should be proud of that."

Today's figures show 5,743 confirmed cases in Surrey, with an estimated 129 cases in Waverley.