I am a swab tester – but we have barely any swabs to test | Gianmarco Raddi

While Germany and South Korea have tested in huge numbers, the response here is hampered by lack of political will

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We have donned our double gloves, face masks and eye shields - Covid-19's fashion essentials. The biosafety cabinets whirr reassuringly in the background, the robots hum, and the radio blasts rock tunes. All systems are go. Then comes the call: "We are finished. No more swabs. You can go home." It's midday. Our shift had only started at eight.

Much fanfare has been made of the need to scale up Covid-19 testing. But the truth is: the country's capacity to test for coronavirus is being wasted. Meanwhile, NHS workers are under-protected and under-tested. On Wednesday alone, more than 700 deaths were recorded in the UK due to Covid-19. One in five deaths are now linked to coronavirus. These numbers are dreadful, and yet they are likely to be an underestimate: the government's figures cover only hospital deaths, but new data revealed 521 Covid-19 deaths in the past few weeks in the care homes of two leading service providers. Strikingly, these firms account for only 3% of all care homes. The true death rate in the UK's care homes, and in the country overall, could be much higher.