Vivera Pharmaceuticals is set to provide free Covid-19 testing services for all first responders and their families in Southern California, US, through its laboratory Pala Diagnostics. Los Angeles city employees, including first responders, who are not immunised with the Covid-19 vaccine are mandated to test themselves twice a week at a cost of $65 for each test, which is deducted from their salary, the company said. Vivera also intends to open testing centres at several sites across Southern California to streamline and extend cost-effective Covid-19 testing.
The Irish Pharmacy Union (IPU) has said that pharmacies are witnessing a significant increase in sales of Covid-19 antigen tests for at-home use, with demand predicted to surge in the run-up to Christmas, The Irish Times reported. General practitioners have observed a trend of people considering negative results as confirmation for not contracting Covid-19 and ignoring crucial guidelines. There are concerns that the general population will increasingly abandon both polymerase chain reaction testing and other protocols on obtaining negative results with home tests. Issues around false-negative results have been raised with lateral flow tests.
The Government of Jersey has set up a new Covid-19 testing lab at General Hospital, which will start processing tests from 22 November this year, BBC reported. The move comes after the state terminated a deal with a firm, OpenCell, which ran a lab in a shipping container near to the island’s airport. Three new testing devices installed at the hospital will handle polymerase chain reaction (PCR) swab samples. The facility’s capacity will be expanded based on demand.
