The COVID Diaries – 36 3rd May
Last Friday the health secretary Matt Hancock announced that the government target he had set of 100,000 tests per day by the end of April had been achieved. More than 122,000 tests had been made available on the last day of the month. It later emerged that a third of these had not been carried out.
Today we are told that the number of daily tests dropped below 80,000. Care home staff reported difficulties in getting tested and it is reported that home testing kits were delivered without return envelopes.
Earlier, the government’s transport secretary, Grant Shapps, admitted that more lives could have been saved if tests had been made sooner and in larger numbers.