Boots to sell lateral flow kits for £5.99 as end to free Covid tests looms
THE cost of scrapping free Covid testing in England is emerging, as Boots has revealed it will start selling a single lateral flow for £5.99.
As of tomorrow, customers will be able to purchase the rapid at-home testing kits from the website.
The retailer said a pack of four lateral flow tests will be priced at £17, and one test for £5.99, which includes delivery via Royal Mail within two days.
From early March, Boots will also offer Covid lateral flow tests at 400 stores for a lower cost.
A single test will be priced at just £2.50 while a pack of five will be £12.
The retailer is the first to reveal its plans to offer people in England lateral flow tests at a price.
Asif Aziz, Director of Healthcare Services at Boots UK, said “affordable lateral flow testing options” will still be available “for those who want peace of mind after 1st April”.
It comes after the Government announced yesterday that free widespread testing will be scrapped from April 1 – including at-home lateral flow kits.
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Tests will still be available to symptomatic elderly and vulnerable people.
Unveiling his “living with Covid” plan, the Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: “We’re working with retailers to ensure that everyone who wants to can buy a test.”
The tests may vary considerably between shops, with previous reports of £30 per box of seven.
Mr Johnson – who said that the testing system had cost more than £2 billion in January alone – has faced backlash over the plans.
Tens of thousands of people behind a petition on Change.Org calling for tests to remain free, and self-isolation, due to end on Thursday, to remain.
There are concerns that charging for tests will hit poorer families.
Prof Christina Pagel, Professor of Operational Research, UCL, said: “Removing self isolation requirements, financial support for self-isolation and free testing will disproportionately affect more deprived communities.
“People within those communities will be less able to afford testing, less able to afford to isolate and more likely to work outside the home and so potentially infect others.
“Combined with higher rates of existing health conditions and lower rates of vaccination, this is likely to lead to significantly higher burden of Covid and its consequences in these communities compared to the least deprived.”
Before April 1, the number of free tests available each day will be capped to “manage demand”.
It means that people are no longer able to order a box of seven tests every 24 hours, and instead have to wait 72 hours.
A scramble for the last of free test boxes has left people struggling to order lateral flow kits at all today.
The Government has “urged people only to order what they need” after shameless hoarders have taken to social media to show off their stockpiled kits.
A debate in the Lords today saw Labour front bench peer Baroness Smith of Basildon asking whether the cost of a lateral flow test will be fixed.
For the Government, Lords Leader Baroness Evans of Bowes Park said: “Retailers will be setting the price but we will be ensuring that the private testing market is properly regulated, including monitoring prices charged, and we will of course continue to work with UK companies in developing lateral flow tests.”