"Dependent on their success in Liverpool, we will aim to...

"Dependent on their success in Liverpool, we will aim to distribute millions of these new rapid tests between now and Christmas and empower local communities to use them to drive down transmission in their areas.”

what the UK are doing in Liverpool this week is a trial for whole of UK mass city testing they plan to roll out nationwide by Christmas if it’s successful.
- it uses a mix of test types including the instant test types CM8 supply. My speculation for the mix of types is they are using anything they can get their hands on
- It also requires people to get retested every two weeks and is being deployed by 2,000 army personal

so for Liverpool alone which has 500,000 people they will need 13m tests over the next 12 months to tear them all fortnightly.

assuming the UK roll the program out to other major cities as they are suggesting London for example with 10m people would require 260m test kits for a full year. Manchester or Birmingham at 2.5m population would require 65m test kits a year for each city

if you look at these numbers and the amount of sourcing they will need to do at very short urgent notice / then consider Vital already have NHS relationships getting a 1m tests order for CM8 doesn’t seem as completely unrealistic as you might at first think. A 10m test order would be $98m