Door to door coronavirus testing begins in Egham

Surrey County Council will be delivering home testing kits to households in the area


Last week, Surrey County Council informed Royal Holloway that from Saturday 6th February a localised testing programme will begin throughout parts of Egham and Thorpe. A similar testing programme has been being carried out in parts of Woking and other areas of England last week.

The programme has been agreed by Surrey Local Resilience Forum, the Department of Health and Social Care and Public Health England, with testing kits provided and due to be delivered to homes in the area. This comes after one positive test in Egham has detected the South African variant of the virus in a resident who has no previous positive tests, previous variant cases or links to travel.

The aim is to cover most homes within the two towns until the supply of tests runs out.

The testing kits will be delivered door to door through letterboxes, including student households, by Runnymede Borough Council staff and approved volunteers. They will not complete your test for you and will not need to enter your household.

You can use this map to check if you live in the areas set to be tested. If you are currently living in Englefield Green, it is likely you will not receive a test at this time.

Residents are to carry out their tests regardless of whether they have symptoms or not and should register their details on the gov.uk website. The tests will then be collected from homes and processed in a laboratory to see if there has been any spread of the variant in the community. You will receive your results via email or text. Most people receive their results the next day, but it can take up to three days. Guidance on how to correctly do a self-swab test can be found in this video.

The home test is voluntary but in a statement on the programme, Surrey Director of Public Health Ruth Hutchinson said: “The more cases of the variant we find, the better the chance we have at stopping it from spreading further”. Further information on the surge testing programme including FAQs can be found on the Surrey County Council website.

The same rules about lockdown which have been in place since January still apply and if you are a Royal Holloway student who needs support, you can contact the Student Advisory & Wellbeing Team.