UK less than a quarter of the way to 100,000 coronavirus tests target
The government has reached less than a quarter of target of 100,000 daily coronavirus tests target with just one week to go until the deadline.
There were 22,814 Covid-19 tests administered in the 24 hours to 9am yesterday, which is well short of health secretary Matt Hancock’s target of 100,000 tests a day by the end of April.
There was capacity in the 24 hours to 9am yesterday to administer 48,273 tests, showing that the amount of spare capacity is growing.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said that of the 22,814 tests, 20,063 were done through the NHS, Public Health England and labs in devolved administrations. And 2,700 occurred through the government’s drive-through testing centres. A further 51 were administered through the “surveillance programme”.
Professor John Newton, who is co-ordinating the government’s testing programme, said last night he was “very confident” the 100,000 test target will be met by the end of the month.
He told ITV that the UK “certainly has the capacity” to reach the target.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer pressed the government on why it was so short of its testing target at yesterday’s Prime Minister’s Questions.
He said “we’re way behind the curve” and asked first secretary Dominic Raab why there was such a large gap between capacity and actual tests carried out.
Raab, who was filling in for Boris Johnson, said: “Our capacity for tests is now 40,000 – that is an incredibly important milestone.
“That will require a big increase, but with a project like this it does require an exponential increase in final days and final week of the programme.
“We are working with a range of commercial partners to boost the testing to get to that 100, 000 tests a day. Two or our super labs are now fully functional and a Glasgow [lab] will be open later this week.”