Woking’s coronavirus ‘surge testing’ operation is now in its third day, and more than 74% of residents contacted have returned a testing kit, with results already being issued.

5,029 kits were delivered by the end of Wednesday, with more than half of the selected households visited, and 3,761 test kits had been collected.

It is hoped and expected that the operation in parts of Goldsworth Park, Knaphill and St John’s will be completed by the end of Friday, with all 10,000 testing kits having been issued.

With the exception of Matt Hancock’s intervention on Monday, which caused confusion, the message on this localised surge testing has been clear and well communicated by the authorities.

Hopefully, thanks to the work of staff and volunteers, and the cooperation of local people, the spread of the ‘South African’ variant of covid will be massively reduced due to the surge testing programme.