Rapid testing is now being offered by more than 70% of local authorities in England for people unable to work from home, latest figures show.

The Government also said that nine in 10 local authorities have now signed up to deliver targeted community testing for people without COVID-19 symptoms.

So far, local authorities have carried out over 2.2 million lateral flow tests, identifying over 44,000 positive cases.

Health secretary, Matt Hancock, said: ‘It is brilliant that more than 7 in 10 local authorities in the country are now offering rapid testing to find positive cases and break chains of transmission and even more are due to start soon.

’Since the community testing programme was launched in December, local authorities have undertaken incredibly innovative work to rapidly get programmes up and running in local areas, using their local expertise.’

The Government offered all local authorities the chance to offer asymptomatic community testing to critical workers last month.