Testing Times with rugby's support
Twickenham Stadium’s COVID-19 testing centre has been conducting up to 1,100 tests a day.
The stadium is supporting those with symptoms who are providing care on the frontline, who can’t work from home or are over 65.
Among the 60 people keeping the testing centre operating each day are 23 RFU employees, friends and relatives who volunteered to help.
Other rugby locations have been used as testing centres too, Penrith RFC providing daily testing, another set up at Exeter's Sandy Park Stadium for NHS staff to use and Grasshoppers RFC hosting a mobile facility.
In Cumbria, a drive-through centre at Penrith Rugby Club is operating in their car park, which the club has provided free of charge to help the NHS and local community. It is open seven days a week as the government ramps up testing, with the club car park one of the only sizeable and suitable sites in the area.
The drive-through Covid-19 testing centre at Sandy Park will be able to test up to 12 patients and staff from the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust (RD&E) every hour at full capacity. It is a vital part of helping staff who are self-isolating or have had symptoms to return to work as quickly as possible.
Army of volunteers
Grasshoppers RFC has been used as one of a number of mobile testing centres, after a request by the local authority for the Army to set one up on site. Some club volunteers lent a hand, chairman Garry Cunningham among them, as they directed traffic and provided the Army with tea, coffee and food.
At Wisbech RUFC in Cambridgeshire, a mobile coronavirus test unit operated by Army personnel has been busy working in the car park beside the clubhouse, which has been opened so that facilities like the kitchen and toilets are available for soldiers staffing the unit.
Marlow Rugby Club have offered their facilities too and currently set up gazebos, generally used for rugby festivals, at two GP clinics in Marlow and Bourne End. Their team of volunteers set these up at 7:30 am and take them down each evening, allowing doctors in PPE to take blood and see patients without the need to have them go into the surgery.
Marlow volunteers have also delivered over 300 prescriptions so that patients don’t need to visit pharmacies.
