Exclusive: Nottingham Trent to spend £2 million on Covid testing for its students

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Nottingham Trent University is to spend £2 million on Covid testing for its students, The Tab can reveal.

The asymptomatic testing scheme is still in the “development stage” and so the university has not yet spent the money, but it anticipates the cost will be in the region of £2 million – or 0.6 per cent of Trent’s £313 million annual turnover.

Last week the university announced it would install a testing facility on campus, and a pilot of the scheme – run in collaboration with the University of Nottingham – will start this week.

However, the university does not yet know how many students the £2 million scheme will eventually be able to test.

While Nottingham has become the country’s Covid hotspot, Trent has not revealed the exact number of Covid cases on campus.

Meanwhile, the University of Manchester – where over 1,200 students have tested positive – has been told by Public Health England not to carry out its own coronavirus testing.

Cambridge, on the other hand, will be making testing available to all students living in college accommodation. A number of other universities are relying on existing NHS testing to detect outbreaks among students.

Commenting on the setup of the testing scheme, an NTU spokesperson told the Nottingham Post: “As part of Nottingham Trent University’s approach to tackling the spread of Covid-19, the University is set to offer a Testing Service for students and staff who may have been in contact with the virus but have no symptoms.

“NTU has been working in collaboration with the University of Nottingham and will offer the service to students from October 19, following a pilot process in selected accommodation. Once established, the service will be rolled out to students and frontline staff.

“Testing will be by invitation-only, targeted at those who may have come into contact with someone who has tested positive for the virus.”

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Featured image: SWNS