200,000 testing target set by PM

Boris Johnson set a new 200,000 daily coronavirus testing target as he said he “bitterly” regrets the Covid-19 crisis in care homes and expressed frustration about problems supplying personal protective equipment (PPE).

At his first Prime Minister’s Questions since his recovery from coronavirus and the birth of his son Wilfred, Mr Johnson said his “ambition” was for the new testing goal to be met by the end of the month.

His Commons appearance came ahead of a speech on Sunday when he is expected to set out plans for easing the lockdown as ministers hinted that cafes may be able to reopen in the summer months if they can provide outdoor facilities.

He was also speaking ahead of the publication of the latest figures from the Department of Health, which show a total of 30,076 people died in hospitals, care homes and the wider community after testing positive for coronavirus in the UK as of 5pm on Tuesday, up by 649 from 29,427 the day before.

The number of tests conducted again failed to meet the government’s 100,000 daily target, with 69,463 on Tuesday.

More than 200,000 people have now been confirmed as having coronavirus. Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick told the Downing Street press conference 201,101 people have tested positive, an increase of 6,111 cases since Tuesday.

The prime minister suggested some of the measures he announced on Sunday could be implemented as soon as the next day.

“We have to be sure the data is going to support our ability to do this,” he said.

“That data is coming in continuously over the next few days. We want if we possibly can to get going with some of these measures on Monday.”

Mr Johnson faced Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer in the Commons for the first time and was challenged by accusations that the government had been slow to respond to the outbreak, leaving the UK with the highest death toll in Europe at nearly 33,000 according to new figures.

The government met its 100,000 a day testing target by the end of April but has failed to maintain that level in early May.

Mr Johnson said “the ambition clearly is to get up to 200,000 a day by the end of this month and then to go even higher”.

A “fantastic testing regime” will be critical to the UK’S long-term economic recovery, he said.

The route out of lockdown will rely on a test, track and trace programme to quickly identify new cases of coronavirus and prevent the further spread of the infection.

Although hospital deaths are falling, ministers and officials have struggled to get a grip on the crisis in care homes – where some of the most vulnerable people risk contracting the disease.

Mr Johnson said: “There is an epidemic going on in care homes which is something I bitterly regret and we have been working very hard for weeks to get it down. A huge amount of effort has been gone into by literally tens of thousands of people to get the right PPE into care homes, to encourage workers in care homes to understand what is needed.”

The latest figures from the Department of Health show a total of 30,076 people had died in hospitals, care homes and the wider community after testing positive for coronavirus in the UK as of 5pm on Tuesday, up by 649 from 29,427 the day before.

But the number of deaths involving Covid-19 that have been registered across the UK currently stands at 32,898.

This includes 29,710 deaths that had been registered in England and Wales up to May 2.

The latest provisional figures from NHS England show that 450 hospital patients who had tested positive for Covid-19 died between May 3 and 5.

Picture: UK Parliament. Prime Minister Boris Johnson.