Do testing targets have any basis in reality?

WE have had various claims about the daily level of tests carried out to check coronavirus.

Firstly, our inept Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced on April 2 that by the end of the month, he was hoping to achieve a daily target of 100,000 tests.

At the time, we were achieving about 14,500 tests daily. This had risen gradually until on April 27, it had reached an average of 20,283.

On April 30, by including 40,369 kits which had been posted for future testing – in other words, where the tests had not been even started – he achieved a total of 122,347 for the day.

So, in a nutshell, he achieved his unilaterally declared new target of 100,000 by including 40,369 uncompleted tests.

I wrote to his department, under the Freedom of Information rules, to seek assurances that the data on the tests from these 40,369 kits would not be mixed with the data for actual routine tests, thereby avoiding double counting.

I have yet to receive a response from his department, so you can draw your own conclusions about the accuracy of his future figures.

On Wednesday, May 6, when the previous day’s tests, including any double counting, only reached 69,463, Boris Johnson declared that his intention was to raise the daily 100,000 target to 200,000 by the end of May.

So, we all awaited eagerly for May 31, when a figure of 128,437 was achieved. But what did Mr Hancock and Mr Johnson declare? They said that the 200,000 target of “capacity” was reached.

The “capacity” figures cannot be tested normally and one hopes that on one of the days, the actual output would hit the capacity.

So, looking at the figures for the first three days of June – 128,437 for June 1, 135,643 for June 2 and 171,829 for June 3 – quite clearly, we as a nation are continuing to operate below our “actual” capacity.

Why is this, or was the arbitrarily arrived-at capacity figure of 200,000 fictitious?

Suresh Chauhan, Glen Parva