The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
30,000 Scottish Covid tests unaccounted for
Fears country now has thousands of confirmed cases not being reported
A fifth of Scotland’s coronavirus test results are unaccounted for, raising fears the country has thousands more confirmed cases than is being reported.
The 30,000 swabs, taken since midApril, are still being processed in a “data exchange” between the UK Government and Scottish Government.
It means Scotland’s confirmed figure of 13,929 is likely to be significantly higher and also casts doubt on recent regional figures.
No new cases were reported in Tayside on Monday and none on Tuesday in Fife, despite testing being ramped up.
The tests have been carried out by Scotland’s drive-through and mobile regional testing centres (RTC), run by the UK Government’s Department of Health and Social Care.
Scottish Labour health and social care spokesperson Monica Lennon MSP said the country cannot safely come out of lockdown if test results are unpublished after a month.
She said: “This process is unfit for purpose. Results are needed by individuals and authorities within a few hours if a test, trace and isolate strategy is to work effectively.
“The Scottish Government needs to get a grip of this quickly – only with adequate testing can we ease a lockdown which the public have complied with for almost two months now.”
The 43 centres have been set up across the UK and are available to all essential workers, anyone over 65 with symptoms, and anyone with symptoms whose work cannot be done from home.
There are five in Scotland, at Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Glasgow airports, Perth College and the University of the Highlands and Islands’ Inverness campus.
In a recent internal briefing sent out by NHS Tayside, seen by The Courier, the health board admits it does not know any of the results from the centres.
The Scottish Government said the statistics will be included in daily figures “shortly” and stressed that the individuals tested have received their own results.
It comes after the UK Government’s Department of Health and Social Care, which has not responded to a request for comment, poured huge resources into reaching 100,000 daily tests.
The Conservative-led government has been criticised by the chairman of the UK Stats Authority for a lack of “trustworthiness” in its reporting of daily testing figures.
A total of 30,708 such tests have been carried out so far in Scotland by the
“Significant progress has been made in the last week. SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT SPOKESPERSON
programme including 1,517 on Tuesday.
This is on top of the 107,252 tests undertaken through Scottish NHS labs to date, of which 3,591 were carried out yesterday.
The unregistered tests account for
22% of all undertaken.
North East Scottish Conservative MSP Bill Bowman said the pandemic has “underlined the need for our governments to work together”.
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “The data exchange from the UK Government programme has commenced and we are in the process of quality assurance, testing, and community health index matching.
“Significant progress has been made in the last week and the patient information, including results from this feed, will be provided to Public Health Scotland for inclusion in public health records shortly.”