Latest updates: ambitious plan to deploy new technologies to test the entire population for coronavirus infection launches in Liverpool on Friday
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- Operation Moonshot: rapid Covid test missed over 50% of cases in pilot
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9.31am GMT
The Archbishop of Canterbury has said he thinks the ban on religious services will “probably change before too long”.
Churches in England can remain open during the four-week lockdown which began on Thursday, but only for private prayer and small funerals.
He told Good Morning Britain: “They come together, they worship, they get the strength to serve and love their neighbours, and the church is doing phenomenal stuff in the country in service of Jesus Christ, to show the love that God has for us and, ahead of Christmas, it’s needed even more.
“So we all wrote to the Government – we’re not going to have a great big row with them – and said we disagree with you about the need to close churches.
9.24am GMT
A rapid coronavirus test at the heart of Boris Johnson’s mass-testing strategy missed more than 50% of positive cases in an Operation Moonshot pilot in Greater Manchester, the Guardian can reveal.
The 20-minute tests, on which the government has spent £323m for use with hospital and care home staff with no symptoms, identified only 46.7% of infections during a crucial trial in Manchester and Salford last month.
Related: Operation Moonshot: rapid Covid test missed over 50% of cases in pilot