Politics

Coronavirus: Target reached as UK tests pass 100,000 a day


Britain"s Health Secretary Matt Hancock speaking during a remote press conference to update the nation on May 1, 2020Image copyright
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The UK deployed more than 122,000 coronavirus tests on the last day of April, passing the government’s target, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said.

Mr Hancock said the target of 100,000 tests per day was an “audacious goal”, but testing was necessary “for getting Britain back on her feet”.

The figure includes home test kits counted when they were dispatched, which may not yet have been processed.

Mr Hancock set the goal on 2 April, when the UK was on 10,000 tests a day.

The latest figures show 27,510 people have now died in UK hospitals, care homes and the wider community after testing positive for coronavirus, a daily increase of 739.

At the daily Downing Street briefing, the health secretary suggested the target had had a “galvanising effect” towards increasing testing capacity in the UK.

He added that the testing capacity built would “help every single person in this country”, and stressed that testing would “help us to unlock the lockdown”.

Mr Hancock said the teams who increased the capacity, had “joined in one of the greatest national mobilisations we’ve seen”.



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