Millions set to be offered home Covid testing kits to get employees back to work

Home testing kits are expected to be offered to millions of adults twice a week in a bid to ease lockdown and get businesses back to work, it is understood.

Officials are considering plans to encourage employees of small companies to order lateral flow devices to reduce the chances of people arriving at their workplace with an asymptomatic infection.

A scheme of lateral flow rapid testing for larger businesses is already in place, with Amazon and John Lewis among high-profile firms taking part. The Government wants to extend it to small businesses – many of which will not have big enough premises for a dedicated testing space – by entitling workers to order the tests in the post.

It follows reports on Monday that all adults will be encouraged to test themselves for Covid twice a week, alongside an advertising campaign urging people to "play their part" by regularly checking that they are not infectious.

Nationwide sewage monitoring, coupled with surge testing, would also be used to identify and stamp down on Covid clusters.

However, it is understood that a final decision on blanket rapid testing has yet to be made, and such a measure is unlikely to be introduced for at least two months.

Lateral flow tests can give a result within roughly 30 minutes. While they are not as accurate as the PCR technology used in the UK's main laboratory testing, new analysis this month suggests they yield fewer than one false positive in every 1,000.

Millions of lateral flow tests have been rolled out to households this month to crack down on asymptomatic Covid transmission among children with the return of schools.

Experts have partly attributed a recent rise in cases in some areas to the school testing drive. The latest figures show that of the 315 local areas in England, 138 (44 per cent) have seen a rise in case rates, 171 (54 per cent) have seen a fall, and six are unchanged.

Barnsley has the highest rate in England, with 483 new cases recorded in the seven days to March 18 – the equivalent of 195.7 cases per 100,000 people. This is up from 147.4 per 100,000 in the seven days to March 11.

It comes as a third Covid wave builds across much of Europe. On Monday Helen Whateley, the care minister, warned that it was "premature" to consider booking a holiday abroad.