The 100,000 tests plan misses the point. It's how the results are used that matters | Paul Hunter
Delivering the coronavirus tests was the easy part. Now we need mass contact-tracing and self-isolation
- Paul Hunter is professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia
On Friday health secretary Matt Hancock announced that the UK had achieved its target of carrying out 100,000 tests per day. Of the reported 122,347 tests on 30 April, a total of 27,497 had simply been delivered to people's homes and 12,872 to other centres. Only a small proportion of those 40,000 tests sent out have been used so far. By Sunday, the figure had dropped to 76,496 to much disconcertion.
Are people right to be worried about the number of tests available? There are valid concerns that while the tests are being delivered in high numbers, they may not all be usable. It is still unclear whether tests sent to care homes can be administered by staff, who are currently not registered to carry out nursing tasks. Some have even been sent tests without return envelopes. Despite some friction in the process of rolling out testing, the number of tests actually carried out is still a very impressive achievement.
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