Friday, 29 Mar 2024

Germany tests 500,000 a week, so why can't UK even do a quarter of that?

The UK won’t test the promised 25,000 people per day for coronavirus until the middle of April, a government minister has said.

Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick said it is hoped that up to 15,000 people a day could be tested for Covid-19 ‘within days’ but that it will take a couple of weeks to hit the 25,000 point.

Shadow health secretary Jonathon Ashworth was critical of the slow speed despite warnings more tests are urgently needed, especially of NHS staff. He said the UK currently tests around 70,000 people a week for coronavirus, whereas in Germany, some 500,000 tests are carried out a week.

NHS staff have expressed frustration that they are being forced to self-isolate just as they are most needed, because tests are not available to show whether they are clear of the disease.

Britain is beginning to test medical staff in temporary testing sites across the UK in addition to patients in hospital, but critics have said it is not expanding testing fast enough or wide enough.

Currently about 8,000 tests a day are being carried out, despite ministers having previously claimed to have met a target of 10,000 a day.

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Mr Jenrick said 8,240 individuals were tested on Monday and more than 900 health workers were tested over the weekend.

He told Sky News: ‘We now have capacity to test 12,750 people every day, we were focusing the capacity that we had on people in critical conditions, which was on medical advice.

‘We think within days we will be able to go from our present capacity of 12,750 to 15,000, so that’s a significant increase but still not as far as we’d like it to be, then mid-April is when we expect to be at 25,000.’

He later told Good Morning Britain: ‘I accept that we do need to ramp up production significantly. It isn’t easy to procure the tests in a global pandemic because there is a great deal of demand.’

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said hospitals should use all spare laboratory space to test NHS staff.

The Royal College of Physicians, the Royal College of Nursing and the British Medical Association all say testing of frontline staff is desperately needed.

Critics have also warned that mass community testing is the only safe way of lifting the lockdown without risking a fresh outbreak of the virus, but Public Health England (PHE) has repeatedly said that testing people in the community with mild symptoms is not necessary.

Cabinet minister Michael Gove said Boris Johnson and Mr Hancock, who are both self-isolating after testing positive for Covid-19, were working with companies worldwide to get the materials needed.

The Chemical Industries Association acknowledged demand was ‘escalating’ but said it has the chemicals it needs to produce coronavirus tests and deliver them to the NHS.

So far in the UK as of 5pm on Monday, 1,789 patients had died in hospitals from coronavirus, including Ismail Mohamed Abdulwahab, 13, the youngest victim in England.

He died at King’s College Hospital in London and his devastated family said to their knowledge he did not have any underlying health conditions.

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