Boris Johnson vowed a dramatic escalation of the UK’s coronavirus testing capacity today amid warnings that the country cannot fight the epidemic ‘blindfolded’.
The PM said the number of tests a day will be increased from the current level of around 5,000 to 25,000, and NHS staff will be prioritised.
The announcement came amid mounting alarm about the level of screening, with fury that health workers are being forced to self-isolate because they are unsure whether they have the disease or not.
Meanwhile, there are claims that celebrities have been paying for kits to check themselves at home.
Representatives from US firm ThermoFisher were seen entering Downing Street last night carrying a box with a testing kit. It is understood they were giving a demonstration of how the four-hour test, which has been approved in the US, works.
At PMQs in the Commons, Mr Johnson insisted that the UK was already carrying out more tests that other ‘comparable’ countries. Some 44,000 have been conducted in total so far.
‘This country is actually far ahead of many other comparable countries. We are increasing our tests from 5,000 to 10,000 a day,’ he said.
He added later: ‘We are moving up to 25,000 a day.’
However, Jeremy Corbyn demanded an increase on an ‘industrial scale’ – pointing to the advice from the World Health Organisation (WHO), which has been highly critical of the move to tell people with symptoms to isolate at home, without being diagnosed.
The PM said the number of tests a day will be increased from the current level of around 5,000 to 25,000, and NHS staff will be prioritised
Two men wearing suits were pictured carrying a box from ThermoFisher – which makes coronavirus tests that give results in four hours – outside Downing Street this afternoon
PrivateHarleyStreetClinic.com says it can get a test to your home within 48 hours, in exchange for £375
WHAT TEST IS THE UK CURRENTLY USING TO SWAB PATIENTS FOR CORONAVIRUS?
Public Health England has not revealed which tests it is using to swab thousands of patients for the killer coronavirus.
But in a blog on its website, it suggests it just uses one – which takes a sample from a suspected patient’s nose and throat.
It says PHE’s diagnostic test was rolled out to 12 laboratories across the UK, who all increased their working output to analyse samples for 12 hours every day of the week. But patients are left in limbo for between 24 and 72 hours waiting for their test results to come back.
But health officials revealed last week that NHS hospital laboratories would soon start testing people to ease the strain on PHE, allowing them to conduct tests on-site without having to send samples away.
The Government yesterday ordered thousands of testing kits from the French-based firm Novacyt, in a deal worth £3.7million.
But it is understood they are for hospital use only – even though NHS staff across the UK have already warned that facilities are swamped.
The company was an early mover in developing a test and is now supplying more than 60 countries. MailOnline has asked PHE to clarify which tests it uses.
Last week US health bosses granted the emergency use of two tests in a desperate attempt to keep track of America’s escalating crisis.
One of the diagnostic tools was made by Massachusetts-based firm Thermo Fisher Scientific. It can give results in four hours.
Two men wearing suits were pictured carrying a box from ThermoFisher outside Downing Street yesterday.
It is undersood they were going in to demonstrate the kit at a meeting.
The Government’s chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance admitted yesterday that the tests must be ‘ramped up’.
‘That clearly is not going to be enough going forward,’ he told MPs.
‘We really do need to get our testing in the right place to ensure we can monitor this effectively…
‘There is a very big effort going on to try to ramp that up.’
It is not clear the extent to which the number of tests is an issue, or whether the issue is the capacity of Public Health England (PHE) to carry them out.
The Government has been at pains to say that it is testing more people than the majority of other states with coronavirus. But it is still far below the number being tested by nations like South Korea.
Last night men carrying a box from ThermoFisher – which makes coronavirus tests that give results in four hours – were pictured in Downing Street.
Celebrities and big businesses have begun paying out for a £375-a-time home-testing kit being sold by a private clinic, according to the Telegraph.
PrivateHarleyStreetClinic.com says it can get a test to your home within 48 hours, boasting: At present, the NHS is only offering testing for Coronavirus to hospitalised patients.
‘We have been inundated with requests to provide a private test.
‘We can now confirm we are able to offer paid tests, via a postal courier service on a maximum 3 day turnaround service to private individuals and organisations.
‘Most importantly, this is the only test in the world that can identify the lethal Covid-19 virus and differentiate between 9 other non lethal viruses with the same symptoms.’
Shadow health secretary Jon Ashworth said: ‘Our NHS staff are battling to protect us, government must protect them: From goggles, gowns, gloves, masks and thermometers we need adequate PPE for all staff across secondary & primary care.
‘Testing must be scaled up urgently for staff.’
Mr Ashworth added: ‘This is a national effort and all of us must pull together.
‘We have to urgently ramp up testing especially for our NHS staff.
‘If this Harley Street clinic has testing capacity then government needs to get hold of it for NHS staff.’
Around 86 per cent of coronavirus patients go undetected because their symptoms are so mild, a study warned last night.
Scientists at Columbia University in New York analysed the spread of the infection in China, before the outbreak spiralled out of control.
WHO warns lack of tests means fighting disease ‘blindolded’
The World Health Organization earlier this week criticised countries which have given up on routinely testing all suspected coronavirus patients.
The UN agency’s director-general, Dr Tedros Adhanom, warned the pandemic won’t be stopped if officials don’t know who is infected.
In a startling warning to the UK – which only tests patients in hospital, he added: ‘You cannot fight a fire blindfolded.’
Almost 175,000 cases of the coronavirus have been recorded worldwide, with 6,500 deaths recorded on every continent except Antarctica.
The researchers found the thousands of undocumented infections drove the spread of the crisis, which saw most of China locked down.
It comes after Sir Patrick suggested around 70,000 Britons – or roughly one in every 1,000 out of the 68million population – could unknowingly be infected with the virus.
He claimed for every death in Britain – 71 have been announced so far – there is likely to be 1,000 positive cases.
Addressing MPs yesterday he said the UK needed ‘a big increase in testing’ because 4,000 a day was ‘clearly not going to be enough’.
‘We simply don’t have the mass testing available for the population now,’ he told the Health Select Committee.
‘There is a big effort going on to get that in place as quickly as possible.’
Labour’s shadow health secretary Jon Ashworth said that healthcare staff ‘battling to protect us’ from the panic were being exposed by a shortage of testing kits and a lack of protective equipment’
WHAT ARE OTHER COUNTRIES DOING?
South Korea
South Korea has the capacity to test around 20,000 people each day – more than any other country in the world.
Officials gave permission to four companies to make kits, with the country desperate to stop the killer virus spreading. It also uses drive-through testing centres.
Figures show the country has now tested up to 300,000 residents, at a rate of 5,000 per 1million inhabitants, according to reports.
In contrast, the rate in Britain is around seven times lower – at just 700 per 1million, MailOnline can reveal.
South Korea’s outbreak – which has seen almost 8,500 cases and fewer than 100 deaths – has curtailed in the past week.
Fewer than 100 patients are being diagnosed each day, which leading scientists say is because of the country’s rigorous testing programme.
Kim Woo-Joo, an infectious disease specialist based at Korea University, told Science magazine: ‘Lab testing is essential to control an emerging infectious disease.’
China
The coronavirus crisis began in China at the end of December, and saw hundreds of millions of people locked down in a desperate attempt to contain the crisis.
But World Health Organization experts said it was Beijing’s decision to test all suspected cases and then isolate their contacts was more important than the country-wide quarantines.
The UN agency’s assistant director general Bruce Aylward told New Scientist testing ‘stopped transmission in China, not the big travel restrictions and lockdowns’.
More than 80,000 COVID-19 cases were confirmed in China and at least 3,000 patients died of the infection.
Italy
Italy is at the centre of Europe’s ever-growing coronavirus outbreak, with more than 31,000 confirmed cases and at least 2,500 deaths.
At the beginning of the spiralling crisis at the end of February, health officials tried to test every suspected case.
Virologists praised the approach, saying the strategy of ‘over-testing’ was ‘right and sensible’. Around 130,000 people have already been tested in Italy.
Authorities have already managed to completely halt the outbreak in one small town near Venice because of the rigorous approach.
The Financial Times reports that Vò – 45miles (72km) east of the tourist hotspot, has had no new cases for 48 hours.
And the outbreak in Lombardy, the northern Italian region that has suffered the most from the deadly infection, is slowing down, officials say.
The US
At the other end of the scale, the US has repeatedly been criticised for not testing enough people – with around 50,000 tests carried out so far.
Some states, such as Alabama and Delaware, have swabbed fewer than 100 people, according to an independent tracker.
President Donald Trump has declared a national state of emergency and announced additional measures to expand testing.
Now, all US states can make, validate and use their own tests rather than wait for the approval of the FDA – the US regulatory body.
Health and state officials have widely blamed the testing shortage for the steep rise in US cases.
They say it both delayed public knowledge of just how many cases there were and allowed the disease to continue to spread from unwitting carriers.
