The Health Secretary yesterday vowed to dramatically ramp up the number of tests being carried out amid a fierce backlash over the government's lacklustre efforts so far.
He said he wanted testing to hit six figures by the end of April and suggested that would be achieved through a mix of antigen tests which use a swab and show if someone currently has the disease and antibody tests which can be done at home and show if someone has had it already and has some degree of immunity.
The latter is viewed as a coronavirus 'game changer' because identifying people who have had the disease and who now have resistance to it would enable them to go back to work, gradually restarting the creaking UK economy.
Increasing antigen testing is also viewed as crucial because it would allow officials to test self-isolating health workers and to say for certain whether they have the disease, allowing those who do not to return to the frontline.
There are major questions over how the government will hit the 100,000 number after Mr Hancock today said ministers still had not found 'reliable' antibody test - widely viewed as the key to getting the UK out of lockdown - with Public Health England said to be examining 150 different kits.
He appeared to plunge the strategy he announced yesterday into confusion as he suggested antibody tests would not be relied on to hit the target, raising concerns about how feasible it is to get to 100,000 using the more labour intensive antigen tests.
Manufacturers of antibody tests who have sent them to Public Health England for assessment today said there was still no clarity on whether their kits were going to be used despite some claiming their devices are 98 per cent accurate. An Essex-based maker of DIY kits claimed officials won't even look at its product because it is a self-test, as opposed to one used by medics.
Meanwhile, scientists who said they had offered their help to the government two weeks ago to increase antigen swab testing claimed they had never heard back.
Mr Hancock today suggested the nationwide lockdown will last until the end of April at least because the UK needs to put in place a massive test and trace programme before normal life can start to resume.
That programme would allow health experts to stop a second wave of the outbreak because people who catch coronavirus could be isolated quickly and all the people who they had come into contact with could also be found and tested.
The Health Secretary was in self-isolation for a week after catching coronavirus, rejoining the public fight yesterday, and today he set out his own battle with the disease, describing it as 'like having glass in my throat' as he revealed he lost half a stone.
It came as it emerged that NHS staff swabs for antigen tests are being sent to Germany because the test results come back quicker than if UK laboratories are used while public health planners tasked with preparing the UK for a global health crisis were said to have ignored warnings from the World Health Organisation to prepare for a mass testing programme.
Officials 'did not discuss' implementing such a programme because they assumed that a new strain of influenza was the most likely threat and testing in that scenario is 'not important', according to the Telegraph. The decision appears to contradict guidance on bird flu issued to countries by the World Health Organisation in 2005.
Mr Hancock's intervention came as:
- John Hopkins University in the US said global cases of Covid-19 had now passed one million worldwide.
- The NHS Nightingale Hospital at the ExCel centre in London is due to open to patients while two other temporary hospitals have been announced for Bristol and Harrogate.
- In New York people are being urged to wear face masks, piling pressure on UK experts to change their guidance.
- Some 163,194 people in the UK have now been tested for the disease - roughly 0.2 per cent of the population.
- Latest data shows 2,921 people were confirmed to have died in hospital in the UK after testing positive for coronavirus.
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