It’s so important to follow the testing process in full

Alongside the national vaccine roll-out, the Government is encouraging all adults who don’t have symptoms to get tested twice a week - even after they have been vaccinated – to help identify virus variants and stop individual cases from becoming outbreaks.

If you don’t have symptoms you can book to get a free test (called a Lateral Flow Test) at the COVID Test and Collect Centre in Middleton Grange Shopping Centre, on the ground floor just along from WHSmith and directly opposite the Vodafone shop, and you can also drop into the centre to collect free kits to test yourself and your family at home – visit www.hartlepool.gov.uk/covid-test-and-collect for more details, including opening hours.

If you are tested at the centre you will get your result by text within 24 hours - and in most instances within an hour – together with instructions on what to do next if you test positive. If you test yourself at home, the testing kit will give you the result.

Either way, if you test positive, to confirm the result you must arrange to get a further, different type of test (called a PCR test) at a PCR testing centre – book a test at www.gov.uk/get-coronavirus-test or call 119.

There are PCR testing sites in Hartlepool in the Sandy Car Park (former coach park) at Seaton Carew and one has just opened at The Waterfront.

Craig Blundred, Hartlepool Borough Council’s Director of Public Health, said: “I would like to thank everyone without symptoms who is getting regularly tested - it is playing an important part in keeping us safe and beating COVID and I hope everyone will build it into their daily lives moving forward.

“But it’s really important that if you do test positive in your Lateral Flow Test, you then get a PCR test straight away to confirm the result and complete the process.”