Mr. Paul Reid:

The straight answer is "Yes". Serial testing is a protection and it is very useful and beneficial for us. I will make a quick reference. In nursing homes we have carried out approximately 182,000 tests as part of serial testing. The positivity rate is low, as the Chairman said, at 0.16. In meat and food processing plants, 21,600 tests have taken place and the positivity rate is 0.34, and we have carried out 3,214 tests in direct provision centres where the positivity rate is 0.53. I want to make a brief point on this because we have to calibrate on a daily basis if we see community transmission, which happened on one occasion several weeks ago, and we diverted resources to deal with symptomatic cases.

Someone who is a direct contact of a positive case who is symptomatic has a 20% probability of testing positive. This is the experience of the figures we have.

In essence, the chance of a positive test is 100 times greater. Those are the kinds of daily decisions we have to make about redirecting resources. We see value in serial testing.