New Covid-19 drive-in test centre to open at Cork Airport

TWO drive-in Covid-19 test centres are due to open in Cork and Shannon Airports on Thursday.

Drivers can get swabbed inside their cars with patients able to book their tests on CovidCheck.ie Irish healthcare company RocDoc will have on site labs to process the tests for passengers flying in and out of the airports.

RocDoc CEO, David Rock says people can get test results back quickly depending on the type of test they do.

"Once they have an appointment, they turn up at the airport and begin with the check-in desk with their window up so they don't need to come into contact with anybody.

"Then they go into a short queue and at the front of that queue, they will be swabbed inside their vehicle."

From midnight tonight, Ireland will be part of the EU traffic light system for international travel aimed at allowing for safer travel within the EU.

Each region will be given a colour, green, orange or red, relating to the prevalence of Covid-19 there.

Passengers arriving from green regions will not need to quarantine, while people coming from orange regions will have to supply a negative Covid-19 test taken no more than three days before arrival in order to avoid isolating.

Ireland and much of Europe currently has 14-day incidence and positivity rates that will classify them as red regions.

The data used to determine each regions colour will come from the European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.