The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has announced that surge coronavirus (COVID-19) testing will be deployed to monitor the spread of the new coronavirus variant found. The DHSC has said the variant was first identified in South Africa. Surge testing has the aim to support the existing extensive testing which has already been set in place, to monitor and supress the variant spreading. The DHSC outlines the affected postcodes and has said positive cases will be ‘sequenced for genomic data’ in order to better understand coronavirus variants.