Without a vaccine Britain is going to be living with coronavirus and its effects for months if not years to come. To get back to anything approaching normal life, ministers and scientists are trying to devise a surveillance system to identify potential new cases (and everyone those people may have come into contact with) and get them tested.
By doing this they hope to limit the spread of the virus in the community and prevent another dangerous spike in cases that could require a second lockdown to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed.
In particular, by testing those who may have been in close contact with a known case, they hope to pick up people who may have developed the disease but are asymptomatic.
Scientists increasingly
