The Health Secretary Matt Hancock has admitted that hitting its new target for coronavirus tests has left the Government with ‘a huge amount of work to do’. Speaking as the NHS prepared to open a new temporary hospital, constructed in nine days at London’s ExCel centre, Mr Hancock described the target of 100,000 tests a day as ‘a big task and a big ask’, but claimed that in partnership with industry ‘this national effort’ was achievable.
On Thursday Mr Hancock, who has just recovered from COVID-19, had emerged from self-isolation to announce a ‘five-pillar’ plan to increase testing. In recent day the Government has come under fire, from critics including former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt due to sluggish rates of testing and a lack of adequate personal protection equipment (PPE) for health care professionals.
The centrepiece of the plan is to ramp up coronavirus testing to 100,000 tests a day by the end of April. ‘[It] is the goal, and we’re determined to get there,’ said Mr Hancock, promising that ‘all NHS frontline staff’ will be tested in the next four weeks. Since the crisis began around 163,000 people have been tested for the virus, of whom 34,000 were positive. Last month Prime Minister Boris Johnson claimed that the UK would get to 250,000 tests a day
The government initially intends to roll out the antigen test, which determines whether someone has the virus now and can spread it, to NHS staff. Public Health England is said to be ready to order millions of antibody tests, which show whether somebody has had the virus and has developed immunity, as soon as their accuracy can be determined.
The pledge has been greeted with some scepticism by experts who have pointed that factors, such as the global supply of chemicals and reagents, are beyond the control of the Government. Keith Plumb, a chemical engineer on the board of trustees at the Institution of Chemical Engineers, told Sky News: ‘I wouldn't say it was a completely empty promise but the task is very great - the proverbial Herculean task.’
Deaths from COVID-19 rose by 684 on Thursday, taking the UK’s total to 3,605. These included 36-year-old nurse Areema Nasreen. Dame Donna Kinnair, chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing, paid tribute, saying: ‘We know that Areema has given her life in terms of looking after patients.’