Lincolnshire’s COVID PCR testing sites close today

All of Lincolnshire’s COVID-19 PCR testing sites, including mobile units, will close later today.

The PCR testing sites at Lincolnshire Showground and Lincoln’s Joseph Banks Laboratories will close at 6pm on Wednesday, March 30. The PCR sites in Skegness, Boston, Grantham, and Gainsborough will also close at the same time.

At 3pm, all mobile testing units in the county will close. The areas in the county covered by mobile testing units are Lincoln, Mablethorpe, Louth/Manby, Horncastle, Grantham, Stamford, and Spalding.

From April 1, free universal symptomatic and asymptomatic testing for the public will end, but will remain available for social care staff and for a small number of at-risk groups.

However, free symptomatic testing will still be provided for certain groups of people. Asymptomatic lateral flow testing will continue from April in some high-risk settings where infection can spread rapidly while prevalence is high.

From April 1, updated guidance will advise people with symptoms of a respiratory infection, including COVID-19, and a high temperature or who feel unwell, to try and stay at home and avoid contact with other people.

They will be advised to stay at home until they feel well enough to resume normal activities and they no longer have a high temperature. Until April 1, individuals should continue to follow the current guidance.

From this date, anyone with a positive COVID-19 test result will be advised to try to stay at home and avoid contact with other people for five days, which is when they are most infectious.

Advice will be provided for individuals who need to leave their home when they have symptoms or have tested positive, including avoiding close contact with people with a weakened immune system, wearing a face-covering and avoiding crowded places.

Under new plans, free symptomatic testing will be provided for:

• Patients in hospital, where a PCR test is required for their care and to provide access to treatments and to support ongoing clinical surveillance for new variants
• People who are eligible for community COVID-19 treatments because they are at higher risk of getting seriously ill from COVID-19. People in this group will be contacted directly and sent lateral flow tests to keep at home for use if they have symptoms as well as being told how to reorder tests
• People living or working in some high-risk settings. For example, staff in adult social care services such as homecare organisations and care homes, and residents in care homes and extra care and supported living services, NHS workers and those working and living in hospices, and prisons and places of detention (including immigration removal centres). People will also be tested before being discharged from hospital into care homes, hospices, homelessness settings and domestic abuse refuges

Asymptomatic lateral flow testing will continue from April in some high-risk settings where infection can spread rapidly while prevalence is high.

This includes patient-facing staff in the NHS and NHS-commissioned Independent Healthcare Providers, staff in hospices and adult social care services, such as homecare organisations and care homes, a small number of care home visitors who provide personal care, staff in some prisons and places of detention and in high risk domestic abuse refuges and homelessness settings.

In addition, testing will be provided for residential SEND, care home staff and residents during an outbreak and for care home residents upon admission. This also includes some staff in prisons and immigration removal centres.

Children and young people who are unwell and have a high temperature should stay at home and avoid contact with other people, where they can. They can go back to school, college or childcare when they no longer have a high temperature, and they are well enough to attend.