Health experts said plans to screen the population of Liverpool for coronavirus were not fit for purpose. Mass testing has got under way in the city in the first pilot study of its kind.
Everyone living or working in the city - including children - will be offered repeat tests, whether or not they have symptoms.
About 2,000 military personnel have been deployed to help deliver the programme with hundreds of soldiers taking over a local Pontins holiday park.
The two-week pilot scheme will see half a million people across Liverpool offered regular testing from today. However a group of academics, including Allyson Pollock, Professor of Public Health at Newcastle University, said plans to test asymptomatic people against SAGE advice to