{"id":55279,"date":"2022-02-22T12:23:00","date_gmt":"2022-02-22T12:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/?p=55279"},"modified":"2022-02-23T12:24:36","modified_gmt":"2022-02-23T12:24:36","slug":"free-access-to-testing-to-end-with-some-exceptions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/free-access-to-testing-to-end-with-some-exceptions\/","title":{"rendered":"Free access to testing to end, with some exceptions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Changes to COVID-19 testing &#8211; both to rapid lateral flow device (LFD) testing for people with no symptoms and PCR testing for people with symptoms &#8211; were announced by the Prime Minister<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>From Friday 1 April, <a href=\"https:\/\/eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Flnks.gd%2Fl%2FeyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJidWxsZXRpbl9saW5rX2lkIjoxMDgsInVyaSI6ImJwMjpjbGljayIsImJ1bGxldGluX2lkIjoiMjAyMjAyMjIuNTM3OTUwNDEiLCJ1cmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5uaHMudWsvY29uZGl0aW9ucy9jb3JvbmF2aXJ1cy1jb3ZpZC0xOS90ZXN0aW5nLyJ9.fHBgTbrxMiiP3LunbQk0B-irQZxAQs2Td9plH_PqjA8%2Fs%2F172374962%2Fbr%2F126955650902-l&amp;data=04%7C01%7Cmike.bomford%40devon.gov.uk%7Cf141652ddef14b80edc708d9f615929e%7C8da13783cb68443fbb4b997f77fd5bfb%7C0%7C0%7C637811395046626204%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&amp;sdata=ZzGXv8a%2FZU68I0pCS6%2BELMhoIH1MABZiRomPSa7DCMQ%3D&amp;reserved=0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">free access to all types of COVID-19 testing<\/a> will end, with some exceptions.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Social care staff and people considered to be most at risk will continue to have free access to the tests.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>People deemed &#8216;at-risk&#8217; are yet to be defined, but it&#8217;s likely to include those eligible for antiviral treatments that need to be given early on to try to prevent hospitalisation.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But the majority of the public will not be able to find out if they have coronavirus unless they pay privately for tests.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And instead, it will be up to those who feel unwell to decide whether to stay at home, as they do for other infections.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There will remain, however, an ability to ramp testing back up, if considered to be required.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":53395,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[106],"tags":[293],"class_list":["post-55279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adult-social-care","tag-coronavirus"],"acf":[],"featured_image":{"ID":53395,"title":"lateral flow","alt":"a person sat at a table taking a lateral flow test, squeezing a liquid into a small plastic tube","description":"","caption":"Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash","url":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2021\/10\/lateral-flow-scaled.jpg","width":2048,"height":1365,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2021\/10\/lateral-flow-400x270.jpg","thumbnail_width":400,"thumbnail_height":270,"medium":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2021\/10\/lateral-flow-600x400.jpg","medium_width":600,"medium_height":400,"medium_large":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2021\/10\/lateral-flow-768x512.jpg","medium_large_width":768,"medium_large_height":512,"large":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2021\/10\/lateral-flow-800x533.jpg","large_width":800,"large_height":533,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2021\/10\/lateral-flow-1536x1024.jpg","1536x1536_width":1536,"1536x1536_height":1024,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2021\/10\/lateral-flow-2048x1365.jpg","2048x2048_width":2048,"2048x2048_height":1365,"thumbnail_featured":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2021\/10\/lateral-flow-770x450.jpg","thumbnail_featured_width":770,"thumbnail_featured_height":450,"thumbnail_sidebar":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2021\/10\/lateral-flow-200x135.jpg","thumbnail_sidebar_width":200,"thumbnail_sidebar_height":135,"banner-block":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2021\/10\/lateral-flow-scaled.jpg","banner-block_width":440,"banner-block_height":293,"small-banner":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2021\/10\/lateral-flow-scaled.jpg","small-banner_width":640,"small-banner_height":427,"medium-banner":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2021\/10\/lateral-flow-scaled.jpg","medium-banner_width":1024,"medium-banner_height":683,"small-thumb":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2021\/10\/lateral-flow-scaled.jpg","small-thumb_width":640,"small-thumb_height":427,"medium-thumb":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2021\/10\/lateral-flow-scaled.jpg","medium-thumb_width":320,"medium-thumb_height":213,"large-thumb":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2021\/10\/lateral-flow-scaled.jpg","large-thumb_width":420,"large-thumb_height":280,"slideshow-preview":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2021\/10\/lateral-flow-scaled.jpg","slideshow-preview_width":300,"slideshow-preview_height":200,"slideshow":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2021\/10\/lateral-flow-scaled.jpg","slideshow_width":800,"slideshow_height":533}},"category_priority":false,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2028-05-05 19:58:00","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55279"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55279\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55280,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55279\/revisions\/55280"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}