Editor’s analysis: Government says it has hit 100,000 tests target

Health secretary, Matt Hancock, announced that the government had hit their daily test target yesterday.

Mr Hancock set the target to 100,000 on the 02 April and according to the figures given by Mr Hancock at yesterday’s daily briefing testing numbers have reached 122,347.

Many questions have been raised on whether the government has actually reached the target .

This is due to, Director of Health Improvement at Public Health England, Professor John Newton admitting that all tests sent to homes and testing facilities are counted at the point they are sent rather than when they have been completed.

Not all tests sent to homes and facilities are used, meaning that we can not be sure that 100,000 tests have actually been used and processed. Therefore, have we actually hit the target?

All of this leads me to think whether we can actually trust what we’re told by the government. It seems as if they’re only telling us small parts of the story and then telling us the rest only when questioned about it.

The government has said that of 122,347 tests sent on the 30 May, 27,497 of them were home tests and 12,872 were sent to satellite sites. This means we can only be sure that 81,978 of the tests were actually processed. Are really being shown the full picture?

I believe the only way we can get out of lockdown here in the UK is to test, test and test. The UK is lagging behind its European counterparts in terms of testing. We’re way behind the likes of Germany, Spain and France when it comes to tests per 1,000 people as of April 17.

we have it here https://t.co/ZMjohHRvA7 pic.twitter.com/gAHy0Xl9Nb

— Max Roser (@MaxCRoser) April 18, 2020

I think the best way to carry out the testing is to mass test, anyone and everyone who has symptoms should be able to have a test. However in order to mass test, we must first be able to maintain or better the 100,000 daily tests target.

Do I think the UK will reach the stage where mass testing will be available? Yes, eventually but not right now . I think the Government’s approach to testing and lockdown has been quite laissez-faire and stricter guidelines could have resulted in a better outcome.

There is still lots of hope that we’ll conquer this pandemic. Our NHS staffs are doing their upmost on the frontline for us. So the least we could do for them is to stay safe and at home, to make their workload easier.

We will eventually get through this time and, globally, we’ll come out of this period as much nicer people.

Hope you’ve enjoyed reading my views and analysis in this edition, I’ll be back next week with another weekly analysis. Until then….