[Withdrawn] Categories of coronavirus testing
Published 13 August 2020
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The diagrams below show the different categories of coronavirus (COVID-19) testing in the UK.
The reasons to be tested are either to:
- help stop the spread of the virus
- learn more about the virus
Stopping the spread of the virus
Stopping the spread of the virus involves swab antigen testing for key workers and members of the general public. Swab antigen testing means testing to see if someone has the virus. This applies for approximately 80% of tests.
Tests conducted in a hospital or outbreak location are known as pillar 1 (P1). Swab tests on the wider population are known as pillar 2 (P2).
Anyone testing positive under pillar 1 or pillar 2 will have their case transferred to contact tracing.
Learning more about the virus
Learning more about the virus involves testing to understand how widespread the virus is and what proportion of the population have already had it. This applies for approximately 20% of tests.
Antibody testing to see if someone has had the virus is known as pillar 3 (P3). Any other tests carried out to learn about the current prevalence of the virus is known as pillar 4 (P4).
The results of these tests are used in prevalence studies. Positive swab tests from pillar 4 are transferred to contact tracing.