Impossible for UK to meet COVID-19 testing target of 100,000 a day, say scientists
THE government’s targets for coronavirus testing will be impossible to meet, experts have warned.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock pledged that there would be 100,000 tests a day by the end of April.
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The announcement came after fury that the UK has been unable to test anywhere near the numbers seen in countries like Germany.
But experts have claimed the promise wasn’t based on sound science and instead was aimed at grabbing headlines.
Their concern come as the coronavirus death toll today passed 16,000 as fatalities increased by 596.
Health authorities confirmed 16,060 people had died in hospitals across the country in 24 hours as Covid-19 infections rose by 5,850 to 120,067.
Professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia, Paul Hunter, said he viewed the target as unattainable.
“I cannot see that being achieved. It was always designed to be a headline grabber rather than anything else,” he told The Guardian.
Professor Sheila Bird, formerly of the Medical Research Council’s biostatistics unit at the University of Cambridge, voiced her anger at the way the tests were to be carried out.
She said the failure to breakdown how many testes were being carried out on particular groups means scientists will unable more accurately assess the status of the outbreak in the UK.
“The level of incompetence in reporting these tests is outrageous,” said Prof Bird.
“This macho thing about the number of tests done each day is leading to a reporting standard that makes the data almost uninterpretable.
“Reporting the number of tests performed each day is a political requirement, not a scientific requirement.”
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The World Health Organisation has urged countries to “test, test, test” as a key part of its strategy to beat the virus.
South Korea and Germany have gone all out for testing and have some of the lowest death rates in the world.
Officials have admitted the UK does not have the same capacity as other countries that are testing more.