Inverness Caledonian Thistle to be offered use of Ross County's Covid-19 testing machine
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Caley Thistle will be offered the use of Ross County’s cutting edge mobile swab testing unit, imported from South Korea, to ease their return to action.
The Dingwall club’s chairman Roy MacGregor made the pledge to the Championship club, currently scheduled for an October resumption of competitive matches.
He could also extend the offer to other local sports and clubs.
It is possible that the likes of Highland Rugby Club, squash star Greg Lobban, Paralympic hopefuls Fin Graham and Karen Darke or track and cross-country competitors such as Jenny Bannerman and Megan Keith may be able to make use of the technology.
The swab-testing device, costing £35,000, offers positive or negative Covid-19 readings in just 20 minutes for batches of 15 individuals.
MacGregor stressed: “This is a real challenge for clubs and, somewhere along the journey, we hope to be able to share. That’s not now – we need to get our own processes up and running.
“We’ve had to create a controlled environment, but it’s a mobile unit. If Highland Rugby Club or Inverness Caley Thistle or Elgin City wanted to use it, we would share with them, but they would need to create a similar secure environment.
“I’m not convinced bringing people from another club across, at this stage, would be sensible.
“The way I see it is if we use it two days a week, it is going to be available five days a week.
“We’re not against sharing it and I want to give it first to sports where livelihoods depend on it.
“We have some tremendous performance athletes in the Highlands and if they wanted to come along, we would share it with them too.”
