Government races to meet coronavirus testing target

The Government is racing to meet its daily coronavirus testing target, as it revealed it was only halfway there with one day to go.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock has pledged to carry out 100,000 tests a day by the end of April, but just 52,429 were conducted on Tuesday.

The Government’s testing tsar said he is confident the target will be met on Thursday, but there will be a lag in the data.

Professor John Newton, director of public health improvement for Public Health England (PHE), said: “We are pretty confident we will hit that target.

“It puts us really right up there with countries like Germany, so we need that now but we need that for the future as well.”

He said it would be clear whether the Government has reached the target by the end of the week.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, speaking at the daily Downing Street press conference, said there have now been 818,539 tests for the virus across the UK – including 52,429 tests on Tuesday.

The Government has been under pressure over the target, with Mr Hancock announcing a massive expansion of the groups eligible for testing on Tuesday night.

Mr Raab acknowledged there had been a “distribution issue” in getting tests for care home staff and residents.

He said: “We have expanded the eligibility, eligibility now includes anyone in a care home whether resident or staff.

“We have obviously had a distribution issue, there is no sugar coating the challenge we have had with that.”

But he said the Government was now doing “everything we possibly can” to improve supply and delivery.

Meanwhile, PHE has come under fire for abandoning contact tracing in mid-March, saying at the time that the spread of the virus through the population made continuing such a method unfeasible.

Prof Newton told Today the UK has “some of the best contact tracing resources in the world”, but the same decision would have been made to stop contact tracing in the community in mid-March regardless of resources, because such contact tracing was “just not possible”.

He acknowledged Germany had been in a particularly strong position on testing, but said: “However much testing capacity we had at that point, we would have made the same decision.”

He said capacity has been built up during the lockdown, but added: “However much testing capacity we had before, the advice and the action would have been exactly the same to implement strict social distancing.”

His comments appear to contrast with those of England’s chief medical officer, Professor Chris Whitty, who told MPs last week that a larger resource base could have led to a different decision regarding stopping contact tracing.

Prof Newton told Today he does not necessarily think a lower number of coronavirus deaths in Germany than in the UK is due to high levels of testing.

“Germany was in a particularly strong position, and people assume that the level of testing in Germany is what led to the lower numbers of cases and deaths,” he said.

“But that’s by no means obvious, and there are other factors that led to Germany having lower numbers as well. So we shouldn’t just jump to conclusions about more testing equals better outcomes.”

Access to coronavirus home testing kits for the millions who are now eligible ran out in just over an hour on Wednesday morning.

Slots for millions more people, including those over 65 and those who live with them, were available to book on the Government website from 8am.

Tests at regional drive-through centres ran out in Wales almost immediately – but were still available in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland as of 9.15am.