Britain will begin door-to-door Covid-19 testing of 80,000 people in a bid to stem the spread of a new highly infectious so called South African variant of the novel coronavirus.

To contain the new outbreaks, residents in eight areas of the country will now be tested whether or not they are showing symptoms, a process known as “surge testing”.

There are about 10,000 people in each area. Three are in London, two in the southeast, one in central England, one in the east and another in the northwest, Reuters reported.

“It is concerning - it's deeply concerning,” junior education minister Michelle Donelan told Sky. “It's still a very perilous stage of this virus and we've got these new variants spreading.”