TWENTY-four-hour “Covid passes”, allowing people back to theatres and sporting events, are still in the realms of “science fiction,” Jason Leitch has warned.

Scotland’s national clinical director was speaking after Health Secretary Matt Hancock raised the possibility of using a new generation of rapid tests which would enable people to go into confined environments. Hancock described a pregnancy-style test which gives instantaneous results and could entitle someone to a “pass” for 24 hours.

“That is the hope that we hold out for the nation, that we can get things going even if there isn’t a vaccine, that we can use mass testing so people can check whether they have the virus today, if they don’t then [they can] go and do things, even if it means being in close confinement,” he told LBC on Monday. Speaking at the Scottish Government’s daily coronavirus briefing, Leitch worried talk of rapid testing was a “distraction” .

He said: “The test doesn’t exist and the logistics don’t exist, but we should, of course, be in the room aiming for it.

“If you think about this on a UK basis that’s 60 million tests a day of a test that is fictional, presently. So we don’t have it, but it is attractive. I worry that it’s a little bit of a distraction from trying to get the present prevalence under control.”

“It is an attractive, if slightly science fiction solution that everybody would wake up in the morning, take a quick test, then decide what they could do and do the same the following day. I would like it, but I don’t I don’t see it yet.”