Prepare to wait a while for test and trace

Aman whose face I couldn’t see waved frantically to stop me opening my car window. Instead, he held up a placard bearing a phone number. I called it.

There followed a series of instructions muffled by his face mask. Drive through here, open your window, but only a crack, receive the package, park, follow the instructions, return the swabs, leave. We obeyed, as best we could.

If you have ever considered staring down your gullet in a car mirror while wielding a swab, trying not to wobble, gag or touch your tongue or cheeks, and wondering how to do this to a toddler, I don’t recommend the experience. Fortunately, it turned out children are only required to take a swab up the nose “as far as is comfortable”. As you can imagine, a child’s judgment on that may not be the same as a doctor’s.

Whatever the hassle, at least we were able to get a test within two hours of needing one. Two days later the results came back (negative). All things considered, it was impressive.

There was no lack of capacity – in fact, the whole place – five testing lanes housed in the empty car park of a closed youth

A drive-through testing station. Londoners have reported being unable to get a test locally centre – was a ghost town. Mine was one of two cars driving through. It rather felt like the set of an apocalypse movie that had been oversupplied with PPE and understaffed by plague victims.

But this was back in the summer. Since then, something has gone seriously wrong. During Prime Minister’s Questions this week, Sir Keir Starmer brought up several cases in which Londoners were told to drive to Inverness or Swansea to get tested. I checked quickly on my phone, ticking the box saying I had a symptom and clicking through the booking system just far enough to see what happened. “There are currently no drivethrough test sites or walk-through test sites available,” it said. “Please try again later.”

In response, the Prime Minister did not explain what had happened and when it would be fixed. Instead, he declared the facts to be an outrageous “attack on NHS test and trace”. This makes me think it is time for a new Covid slogan: “Stay Quiet. Don’t Complain. Protect the NHS.”