Brown wants mass tests as ‘new norm’

The UK and Scottish governments must radically increase their coronavirus testing targets to secure a path out of lockdown, former prime minister Gordon Brown has said.

A report from Our Scottish Future, a think tank launched by the former Labour leader, says testing must be stepped up dramatically.

He said the Scottish Government’s target for a 15,500 daily testing capacity by the end of this month is not enough, as routine checks on 800,000 key workers north of the border are needed.

The report says just more than 1.5% of the Scottish population have been tested for Covid-19 since the start of the outbreak.

It says this falls short of the testing performance in other countries, with 19 tests per 1,000 people carried out in Scotland compared to 30 in Germany, 33 in Norway and 42 in Denmark.

The report was endorsed by Professor Hugh Pennington, emeritus professor of bacteriology at Aberdeen University.

The former PM said conducting “reactive testing” after the outbreak had already taken hold was not good enough considering it can be spread by people not showing symptoms.

He continued: “We need the Scottish and UK governments to come together on a war footing with a mass mobilisation of people, resources and equipment and we need to ramp up our ambition with a plan which takes advantage of the UK-wide networks we have to accelerate testing at a much more rapid pace.

“Mass testing – not minimal testing – must become the new normal.”