On Christmas Eve, the government is fighting the rising wave of Covid-19 infections, which has led to increasing restrictions in the past few weeks.

Stimulated by the rise of highly contagious variants of Omicron, these restrictions include restoring self-isolation rules, wearing masks, and returning to work from home.

As the number of infections is expected to rise in the coming weeks, many people will be required to be tested if they develop any symptoms or have been contacted by NHS Track and Trace.

Here is everything you need to know about PCR testing and when to do it.

When you have symptoms of Covid-19, even if the symptoms are mild, you should undergo a PCR test. Symptoms include:

If you have no symptoms, you should still perform PCR under the following conditions:

If you have received a positive PCR test result in the past 90 days, you should not perform the PCR test again unless you:

Individuals test positive within 90 days after the initial infection, even if they do not show any symptoms.

However, testing positive in the next few weeks does not mean that you are necessarily contagious.

This is because the PCR test is designed to detect the genetic material of the virus in the body and can only detect the presence of a few viral fragments.

This is because after the infection is over and the virus has been cleared from our system, fragments of viral RNA will remain in our body.

If your test result is positive after retesting by PCR within 90 days of your initial illness, gov.uk recommends that a clinical risk assessment should be used to determine whether there is a possibility of re-infection and to inform follow-up actions, including whether isolation is required.

You can order a PCR test kit to be delivered to your home, or make an appointment at a walk-in or drive-in test point.

Ordering one online is easy and can be done on the gov.uk website. If you encounter problems or cannot use online services, please dial 119. The line is open from 7 am to 11 pm.

If other people in your household have symptoms or have been contacted by NHS Track and Trace, you can test up to three of them.

The test involves swabbing the inside of the nose and the back of the throat with a long cotton swab.

You can do the swab yourself (if you are 12 years of age or older), or someone can do it for you. Parents or guardians must perform swab tests on children 11 years of age or younger.

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