FOI Reference: FOI/2021/3117
You asked
Please also disclose the partner labs and any other non-Lighthouse labs that deal with PCR tests for the ONS Covid infection study. Please let me know preferably by PDF if you are using an attachment.
We said
Thank you for your request.
The COVID-19 Infection Survey is a household survey that estimates the number of people testing positive for infection and for antibodies in the UK. Our statistics refer to the number of current COVID-19 infections within the population living in private residential households. We exclude those in hospitals, care homes and/or other communal establishments. In communal establishments, rates of COVID-19 infection are likely to be different.
All the nose and throat swabs in the COVID-19 Infection Survey are currently sent to the Lighthouse laboratory at Glasgow.
From the start of the survey in April 2020 to February 2021 a proportion of our swabs were also sent to the Lighthouse laboratory at Milton Keynes.
Our other partners for the COVID-19 Infection Survey are the University of Oxford, University of Manchester, Public Health England, Welcome Trust, and IQVIA, but these partners do not process the swabs.
You can find further information about how swabs in the COVID-19 Infection Survey are processed in our methods article and protocol.
Further information and an overview of data about the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic from the Office for National Statistic (ONS) and other sources can be found in our Coronavirus (COVID-19) latest insights tool.