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Michael Gove overstates number of UK coronavirus tests as government misses target

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Michael Gove, the chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, said yesterday that the UK had reached 10,000 tests a day, which was the government's weekly target.
The chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said yesterday that the UK had reached 10,000 tests a day, which was the government's weekly target.

Senior government minister Michael Gove has been caught out misstating the number of UK coronavirus tests carried out last week.

The chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said yesterday the UK had reached 10,000 coronavirus tests a day.

That would be in line with the government’s weekly target. However, it has been revealed today that this was not true.

Public Health England statistics show just 9,114 were carried out on Saturday. And the Sunday figure is not yet known.

However, CityAM understands there is now capacity to administer 10,945 UK coronavirus tests per day.

The government’s aim is to test 25,000 people a day within the next three weeks.

When asked why Gove overstated the testing figures, Downing Street’s official spokesperson appeared to blame Public Health England.

“Ministers are reliant upon info that is supplied to them by Public Health England,” they said.

“Public Health England have clarified what the numbers are.”

There was confusion this morning, after health minster Helen Whately contradicted Gove. She said Britain was up to 7,000 UK coronavirus tests a day by the end of last week.

Whateley’s figure was in fact the number of people in total that were tested on Saturday. Some people needed to be tested twice.

The rate of coronavirus testing in Britain is well below that of many other western countries.

The US is testing 65,000 people a day, while Germany is testing 71,000.

Australia, with a little over a third of Britain’s population, has tested almost twice the amount of people than the UK.

Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said more needed to be done to increase the rate of Covid-19 testing.

“Experts continue to call for the UK to significantly ramp up testing,” he said. 

“When Germany is testing around 500,000 people a week, many are asking why we are still not even hitting the 10,000 a day promised on 11 March.

“We called for enforced social distancing, but it is a blunt tool without a national strategy to test and contact trace.”