Germany “got ahead” of the UK in its ability to test for coronavirus, Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty has admitted.
The rate of growth in deaths in Germany is slower than other European countries.
Asked about this at the daily Covid-19 briefing, Chief Scientific Officer Patrick Vallance said: “The German curve is lower at the moment. I don’t have a clear answer for you as to what is the reason for that.”
He said demographics and the country’s response to measures that have been introduced will have been factors.
But Professor Whitty added: “Germany got ahead on testing, and there’s a lot to learn from that.”
He said: “We’ve got a lot to learn from that and we’ve been trying to learn the lessons from that”
(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
German labs processed 332,414 tests for the coronavirus last week, up 5.9% from a week earlier according to the ALM association of certified laboratories.
Around 1m people in total have been tested in Germany.
So far just 213,181 people in the UK have been tested since the outbreak began.
Asked if the Government is on course to ensure that 100,000 tests per day will be carried out, Mr Raab said: “The Health Secretary set out that target.”
He went on: “On the most recent data that’s been released on tests, there were 14,000 in a single day so that shows progress.
“We’ve had 7,500 NHS workers and their families tested and we’ve got nine drive-through sites currently operational in Nottingham, Chessington, Greenwich, Wembley, Sandwell, Manchester, Belfast, Edgbaston and Glasgow, and Cardiff will be the tenth which will be open shortly.
“So we are making progress on that.”
UK regulators will this week reveal approval criteria for firms offering new coronavirus antibody tests, touted by governments in Britain and elsewhere as critical to easing nationwide lockdowns without helping the virus to spread.
Antibody tests show whether whether people have been infected with the novel coronavirus and developed immunity – potentially allowing them to return to their places of work.
The British government has provisionally ordered 17.5 million of them, but health minister Matt Hancock has said some of those already being trialled work poorly, and that one test even missed three out of four cases.
