COMMENT: Covid tests are going to have to be prioritised

Well right now it looks anything but.

Today we report on how people in Portsmouth are having to wait up to a week to get tested, or drive hundreds of miles to a site where there is spare capacity - all the while having to stay away from work or the classroom until they get a negative result that will allow them to return.

One carer in Southsea was told the nearest test was 400 MILES away.

It seems that our comparatively low infection rates mean we are being allocated fewer tests than towns and cities in the north - and even there it's becoming increasingly difficult to find one.

The very real fear is that if not enough people here can get tested, the risk of a second wave of Covid rises.

Track and trace only works if the people notified that they could potentially be carrying the virus can be tested quickly.

So much effort has gone into getting the schools open again with strict Covid-safe guidelines.

But if teachers can't get tested and have to self-isolate if they or members of their families display Covid symptoms, then classes can't be held and the gates will have to close once more.

Meanwhile pupils with what appear to be no more than colds, who have missed so much classroom education during lockdown and are only just back at their desks, are having to stay off until they can get one of the elusive tests.

Nobody said creating a testing system on a national scale was going to be easy.

But we urge health secretary Matt Hancock to accept its obvious inadequacies and act now - make care home residents and staff, teachers and students a priority for testing.