DON’T FAIL THIS TEST, MINISTER
Humbled into action, Health Secretary promises 100,000 virus tests a day by May. Fine words — but the Mail warns:
MATT Hancock last night pledged a tenfold increase in coronavirus testing after admitting Britain had fallen behind on the ‘critical’ issue.
The Health Secretary said testing would be increased from about 10,000 a day to 100,000 a day by the end of the month, with private-sector laboratories finally invited to help out.
Mr Hancock, who was on his first day back in the office after testing positive for the virus, also said frontline NHS staff who need a test will be able to get one by the end of the month.
Speaking at the Government’s daily press conference in Downing Street, he said he had come back from quarantine ‘redoubled in my determination to fight this virus with everything I’ve got’.
Mr Hancock said observing the lockdown was the most important factor in slowing the epidemic, but acknowledged testing was ‘mission critical’.
It represents a victory for the Daily Mail, which has been campaigning for a massive increase in testing to get on top of the epidemic and enable a lifting of the lockdown paralysing
the economy. Last night, it was reported that hundreds of NHS workers’ swabs have been flown to Germany to be tested so they can find out their results in half the time.
German labs can process the swabs on the day they arrive and deliver results just two days later, The Sun reported.
That was despite a coronavirus testing centre in Chessington sitting almost deserted for parts of yesterday. Just 75 NHS staff were reportedly tested at the centre at Chessington World of Adventures in Surrey, with results taking up to four days. It came as:
Some of the biggest firms in Britain, including British Airways, Topshop owner Arcadia and car giant Nissan, suspended tens of thousands of staff using the Government’s job subsidy scheme in a move that could cost taxpayers £60 billion;
The UK’s death toll soared to 2,921, with a record 569 people dying in a single day;
The number of coronavirus cases worldwide passed the million mark;
Millions across the country lined the street at 8pm to applaud NHS staff fighting the virus, in the second weekly Clap the Carers event;
‘Days of mounting criticism’
Downing Street said Boris Johnson was still suffering ‘ mild’ symptoms of coronavirus a week after testing positive and may not be ready to leave quarantine today;
More than £13 billion of historic hospital debt will be written off to ease cash concerns;
NHS medical director Steve Powis suggested the lockdown is set to continue for weeks;
Despite the surge in cases, Mr Hancock said the NHS still had 1,821 spare critical care beds, even before major new Nightingale field hospitals open in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol and Harrogate;
The Chancellor moved to force banks to make it easier for companies to get government-backed loans;
It emerged that 73 staff at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London have been diagnosed with the virus out of 181 tested; 318 are off sick because they or someone in their house is displaying symptoms.
After days of mounting criticism, Mr Hancock said he wanted to ‘level’ with the public about the difficulties ministers had faced in trying to ramp up testing.
He said the UK had fallen behind countries such as Germany, which is already testing more than 70,000 people a day.
But he said this was because the UK ‘ did not have the scale’ for mass testing at the start of the outbreak, adding: ‘We have had to build from a lower base.’ Mr Hancock
laid out a ‘five-point plan’ for getting on top of the testing crisis. This included a U-turn on the previous reluctance to use ‘commercial partners’ such as universities and private labs.
And it included a commitment to work with the pharmaceutical industry and the academic world to build an ‘at scale’ diagnostics industry in the UK by the end of the month. He said a ‘national effort’ was needed to fix the problem. But the existing target for Public Health England to increase testing for the disease to 25,000 was pushed back from the middle of the month to the end.
And Mr Hancock’s commitment appeared to rely in part on the use of new antibody tests designed to show whether someone has had the disease. The Government has placed orders for 17.5 million of these tests with nine suppliers. But none of the tests has yet been shown to work and more than one has failed its evaluation.
Mr Hancock’s announcement follows tensions between the Government and Public Health England (PHE), which has been in charge of the testing programme to date. Privately, ministers complain that PHE has guarded its role too jealously, preventing a more widespread use of private testing labs until now.
One senior source said it was ‘about time’ Public Health England got some proper scrutiny’. Mr Hancock tried to calm tensions by paying tribute to PHE and appointing its director of health improvement, John Newton, to lead the drive on testing.
Mr Hancock also said the number of doctors self-isolating was 5.7 per cent of the total – far lower than the 25 per cent estimated by the Royal College of Physicians.
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