My wife has been asked to join the national infection survey. Plan (roughly) is that she gets a PCR rapid test kit every few days, and at the start a standby set of swabs. If she gets a positive PCR test she texts the survey team and posts a swab set to them so they can check for new mutations. She's just waiting now why they check questionnaires sent to all new recruits to ensure (presumably) they get a reasonably well-balanced cohort.
This programme has been running for quite a few months now - possibly 6-8. This is how the hot-spots are identified early and new variants detected early.