Taxi drivers, cleaners and shop workers are among the tens of thousands of high-risk workers to get coronavirus tests as part of a new pilot, the Government has announced.
Even those without symptoms will receive tests under the new scheme, which starts immediately.
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said the testing would improve understanding of the prevalence of the virus among those who are judged to be at higher risk.
Firms included in the trial include taxi firm Addison Lee, BT, services firm Mitie and pharmacy giant Boots.
Local authorities in Bradford, Newham, Brent and Oldham will also select groups of people deemed to be high-risk for asymptomatic testing.
The DHSC said each business will receive thousands of tests for staff via home-testing delivery or a mobile testing unit, while local authorities will book tests for people at walk-in test sites.
Those who test positive will need to self-isolate and results will be shared with the NHS Test and Trace programme.
It comes as figures published on Thursday morning revealed the NHS Test and Trace system was identifying the lowest number of people with coronavirus since its launch.
The controversial service, fuelled by a 25,000-strong army of private contact tracers, managed to trace and contact just 3,366 people diagnosed with Covid-19 in the most recent week.
This is the lowest weekly total since Test and Trace was launched on May 28. The numbers it has been able to trace – to ask infected people to share their close contacts – now totals 23,796.
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