Plans for Premier League fans' return 'will gather momentum', says Prenetics CEO
In a wide-ranging interview, the UK CEO of Prenetics discusses increasing testing sites and use of 'health passports' on the day the company revealed 1200 individuals in Premier League academies will be tested twice a week with immediate effect
Wednesday 3 February 2021 15:45, UK
The company that tests Premier League players for Covid-19 says it is "hugely optimistic" that plans to get fans into stadiums will "gather momentum".
Prenetics is actively working on ways to increase the testing capacity, one part of the road map that is intended to culminate in fans being permitted back into stadiums.
Avi Lasarow, the UK chief executive of Prenetics, is hopeful that these plans will gather pace once the current lockdown measures are relaxed.
He said: "One of the bottlenecks in getting fans back to stadiums if testing is used as part of the access requirements, is how do you get mass amounts of people tested within a window of time to get them into a stadium safely?
"We remain hugely optimistic that's going to be possible. The government, of course, together with sports generally will decide which are the testing technologies to be used to allow access into stadiums if that's the route they go.
"Our job is to create a footprint across the country, at which people can go very quickly to get their test done, to go into some sort of health passport to get the results.
"I think those conversations will start to gather momentum once we come out of lockdown. We remain hopeful that that will eventually be a success story."
While the timeframe is dependent on both the Government and sporting authorities, Prenetics does aim to roll out another 100 testing sites across the country.
This is in addition to their current sites at Heathrow, Stansted, Luton and Manchester Airports along with the O2 Arena.
However, Lasarow believes it is likely that restrictions around social distancing and mask wearing will continue for the foreseeable future.
"I think there's no doubt that there will continue to be restrictions of some sort in place," Lasarow said.
"I believe that even as the vaccine rolls out and gets momentum as things start to return to a sense of normality, we will always continue to be mindful of certain things that we need to do to maintain safety."
PL academies to get twice a week testing
Prenetics also confirmed that 1,200 individuals in Premier League academies will be tested with lateral flow devices twice a week with immediate effect.
This will be particularly welcome news for Premier League clubs after Arsenal and Chelsea were previously forced to close academies due to Covid-19 outbreaks.
"This is a great step forward in terms of just making testing more accessible to more people," Lasarow added.
"Obviously from a football-specific point of view yes it helps to get more people playing the game and getting Britain back to work and play.
"Talking about sport generally, talking about the workplace generally, we see that ongoing testing will continue to play a role in getting individuals back to what they do on a daily basis.
"In terms of the academies, as well as other clients that we work with in the sector, lateral flow device testing operationally is administered by Prenetics.
"We are administering these in a way that continues to give that level of assurance that we've seen over the many months in the past with COVID-19 testing."
