Our lateral flow coronavirus testing facility, located in the Great Hall, is now open. Staff and students are being encouraged to make use of it:
https://portal.lancaster.ac.uk/intranet/cms/coronavirus/staff-asymptomatic-testing
It’s all very efficient, with stewards directing you towards the (short) queue and handing out barcoded entry tickets. The process of registering the information from that ticket, via your phone, takes a bit of learning. After scanning the barcode with a QR code reader, you’re asked whether you want to register with or without the NHS app. Your correspondent blundered at this point by selecting the NHS option, only to be told by the helpful steward, it’s easy, just make sure you don’t select the NHS option!
Five minutes later, having waited for a registration email that never came, the same steward advised going to one of the helpfully-provided iPads in the lobby, where the non-NHS registration process was completed in under a minute.
Onward, then, to the Great Hall, where you’re directed to one of around 16 booths, in which a helpful assistant takes you through the process of taking a swab, rubbing it on your tonsils (pause for gagging) and then sticking the same swab up one of your nostrils, until you feel resistance
, rotating it a few times, and then withdrawing (you’ll want to blow your nose at this point).
That’s it. In and out in fifteen minutes. The result comes within half an hour, via text message. All done, until the next appointment — you’re encouraged to book a repeat session three days later.