Door-to-door testing for South African variant of Covid-19 due to start in Maidstone
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Updated: 11:49, 02 February 2021
Door-to-door coronavirus testing is due to get underway in parts of Maidstone today as the government clear up confusion over Matt Hancock s stay at home message.
The areas within ME15 being tested Image: KM Graphics
But there has been confusion over which parts of the ME15 area - one of just a handful of areas in the UK where the new variant has been found with no link to international travel - will get a test and whether people need to stay indoors.
But this was contrary to advice from Kent County Council, which was reminding people that the national lockdown was still in place and that they should stay at home unless they needed to leave the house for essential reasons.
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Thousands of home tests rolled out in bid to stop South African variant spreading By PA News
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Targeted coronavirus testing has been rolled out across areas of England as authorities work to contain the spread of the South African variant.
Door-to-door deliveries began on Tuesday with extra testing in eight postcode areas of the country, as urgent efforts got under way to swab 80,000 people in a bid to stop transmission.
Some locals expressed concern about the variant â which is thought to be as transmissible as the Kent strain but not known to cause more severe disease â with one man saying more action should have been taken sooner.
The number of people in Kent who died after positive coronavirus test in January revealed
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Latest figures show 1,330 people died after testing positive for Covid-19 in January.
A third of all Covid-19 deaths in Kent were recorded last month, despite cases dropping to their lowest point since November 13.
During the peak of the first wave in April, 617 people died with Covid-19 - less than half of January s total.
The lowest recorded death toll was in September, when only 3 people lost their lives to the virus, after which deaths began to rise again.
In the two months between the end of November and the end of January, deaths have risen 272% - more than tripling.