The UK gave up on containing the coronavirus outbreak ‘too soon’ because scientists assumed most people would become infected anyway, a leading expert has claimed.
Devi Sridhar, professor of global public health at the Edinburgh University, said the assumption led officials to abandon measures that could help slow the pandemic.
Those measures include mass testing and stringent contact tracing – two actions which have helped South Korea keep COVID-19 fatalities below 200.
Early on in the UK’s outbreak, the Government suggested one way of beating the virus was by allowing 80 per cent of Britons to get infected to build ‘herd immunity’.
Professor Sridhar tweeted today that this kind of thinking ‘resulted in the UK giving up on containment too early.’
‘Planning and preparing for unprecedented testing and using big data/apps for tracing were taken off the table. In my view, we went down the wrong path,’ she said.
It comes as a record-breaking 381 coronavirus deaths and 3,009 cases were declared in the UK today, which is now officially Britain’s darkest day so far in the ever-worsening crisis.
Devi Sridhar, professor of global public health at the Edinburgh University, said the UK gave up ‘too soon’ on containing the coronavirus outbreak because scientists assumed most people would become infected anyway
Statistics released this morning revealed basic details about the first 108 people in Britain to have COVID-19 mentioned on their death certificate. Elderly people and men were the worst affected, the data showed
By March 20, the coronavirus had become a contributing factor or direct cause in one in every 100 deaths in the UK, according to the latest date from the Office for National Statistics
Britain has been slow to test – less than 5,000 daily swabs were being carried out until March, compared to South Korea’s 15,000.
The UK also gave up on tracing infected patients’ close contacts as cases began to surge and had to impose a nationwide quarantine to stop the virus’ spread.
Whereas South Korea tracked down associates of infected patients and isolated them immediately, meaning it as not needed to enforce such draconian measures.
In a separate series of tweets she added that the UK’s current lockdown was like ‘pressing pause’ on the virus’ spread and ‘playing catch up’.
‘South Korea never had lockdown, only 152 deaths, and didn’t expose health staff to unnecessary risk & pressure,’ she said.
‘Each day in lockdown: kids fall into poverty, domestic abuse increases, social fabric comes apart, major economic hit. Lockdowns are expensive. We need to use the time.
‘We will be stuck in lockdown until we get test, trace, isolation plan. We are basically pressing pause on the spread of virus while we race to catch up.
‘If we’re not using the time now, then we’re just wasting days/months in lockdown not aggressively figuring out where virus is.’
Michael Gove today said the UK must go ‘further, faster’ in ramping up its coronavirus testing efforts
Michael Gove today admitted the government’s coronavirus testing operation must go ‘further, faster’ after Downing Street suggested a target of 25,000 daily checks may not be met until the end of next month.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office said the lack of availability of crucial chemicals which are needed in the testing process was a ‘critical constraint’ on the UK’s efforts.
He said Boris Johnson and the Health Secretary Matt Hancock were now working together to try to source the globally in-demand material that Britain needs.
Speaking at the daily Downing Street press conference, Mr Gove said: ‘While the rate of testing is increasing we must go further, faster. A critical constraint on the ability to rapidly increase testing capacity is the availability of the chemical reagents which are necessary in the testing.
‘The Prime Minister and the Health Secretary are working with companies worldwide to ensure that we get the material we need to increase tests of all kinds.’
Critics today labelled the UK’s efforts a ‘catastrophe’ and ‘dismal’ when compared to what is being done in Germany where 500,000 tests are being carried out every week.
Downing Street had earlier hinted at Mr Johnsons’s apparent frustration at the slow progress on ramping up Britain’s capacity, with a spokesman saying he wants ‘as much progress to be made on this as possible’.
The UK is currently managing just under 10,000 tests a day with the government having previously said it wants to get to 25,000 by the middle of April.
But today Number 10 said the timetable was ‘mid to late April’ – seemingly an admission that efforts have stalled.
Politicians from different parties are now lining up to criticise the government’s approach while business chiefs are doing the same.
Jeremy Hunt, the Tory former health secretary, said mass testing in the community must be carried out by the government while Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage said the efforts so far were an ’embarrassment’.
Scottish entrepreneur Duncan Bannatyne told MailOnline the government’s ‘dismal’ handling of the testing crisis will send vast numbers of British businesses to the wall – and delay the country’s economic recovery.
Experts have insisted ‘organisation’ rather than a shortage of facilities is to blame for the painfully slow rise in checks.
However, there are also suggestions that the UK is struggling to obtain enough of the tests themselves, with Germany seemingly able to acquire them from domestic manufacturers while Britain is having to import them.
A nurse takes a swab from an NHS worker at a testing facility in Chessington yesterday
It came amid reports that NHS England and NHS Wales ended up bidding against each other for testing equipment at the end of last week, prompting the four Home Nations to agree that all procurement will be done in Whitehall.
Germany has been conducting 500,000 tests a week and is aiming to hit 200,000 tests a day in the near future.
Part of the difference between the UK and Germany is reportedly that the latter has more tests available domestically.
There are also claims that a shipment of testing kit parts from the European mainland has been found to be contaminated with the virus, in another potential delay.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps admitted this morning that the government was struggling with the logistical challenge of increasing testing, saying it was not a ‘trivial or straightforward’ task.
‘This is never going to be enough,’ he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. We always need to be pushing.’
Ministers boasted on Sunday that they had reached a target of 10,000 tests a day.
However, while the capacity has been reached, the government has yet to actually carry out that number. The latest figures from Public Health England were 8,278 in the 24 hours to 9am on Sunday, which was actually down from 9,114 the previous day.
The numbers have sparked widespread concerns about the UK approach to testing.
Mr Hunt, the chairman of the Health Select Committee, said it would be ‘very worrying’ if the UK chose not to follow the lead of the likes of Germany and South Korea.
He said mass testing allows for ‘a lot less’ disruption to daily lives because those who have the disease can be isolated and prevented from passing the virus on.
He said: ‘It is internationally proven as the most effective way of breaking the chain of transmission.
‘So however difficult it is to source the reagents, to ramp up the capacity of laboratories up and down the country, it is essential that mass community testing is part of our national strategy.’
Mr Farage told MailOnline: ‘Testing is a catastrophe. It’s an embarrassment. We do not appear to have done anything in six weeks to get ourselves in a better position on this.
‘If I was an NHS frontline worker waiting week after week after week for this I would be furious.’
He added: ‘70,000 tests a day in Germany, a million tests now conducted in America, and we in six weeks have managed to do as many tests as the Germans do in two days.
‘Everybody wants to believe in their leader during a crisis and everyone has given Boris the benefit of the doubt… I think public opinion is beginning to ask very serious questions.’
Scottish entrepreneur Duncan Bannatyne told MailOnline that the government’s ‘dismal’ handling of the testing crisis will send vast numbers of British businesses to the wall – and delay the country’s economic recovery.
The gym mogul and former Dragons’ Den star said: ‘The Government must get on top of testing immediately. The longer we are in lockdown the more businesses will go bust.
‘My business hands over £39million to the Government every year in VAT, PAYE and corporation tax. As long as we are closed they get nothing.
‘Their handling of the testing issue has been dismal to say the least.’
UK waives duties so it can boost import of coronavirus testing kits, ventilators and other vital medical equipment as it faces furious backlash over lagging behind Germany which is testing 500,000 people every week
Britain will waive import taxes on coronavirus testing kits, ventilators and other vital medical supplies in a bid to boost the fight against the deadly disease amid widespread criticism of the government’s testing operation.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced this evening that NHS suppliers will no longer have to pay customs duty and import VAT on specified medical items coming from outside the EU.
It came as Michael Gove admitted the government’s coronavirus testing efforts must go ‘further, faster’ as Downing Street suggested a target of 25,000 daily checks may not be met until the end of next month.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office said the lack of availability of globally in-demand crucial chemicals which are needed in the testing process was proving a ‘critical constraint’ on expanding checks.
Speaking at the daily Downing Street press conference, Mr Gove said: ‘While the rate of testing is increasing we must go further, faster. A critical constraint on the ability to rapidly increase testing capacity is the availability of the chemical reagents which are necessary in the testing.
‘The Prime Minister and the Health Secretary are working with companies worldwide to ensure that we get the material we need to increase tests of all kinds.’
Mr Gove also revealed the first wave of new ventilator devices will roll off the production line this weekend and be delivered to the NHS next week when they will be ‘rapidly distributed to the frontline’.
Meanwhile, the medical director of NHS England Professor Stephen Powis warned that while there are ‘green shoots’ of hope in relation to the spread of coronavirus after an apparent plateau in the number of new cases, the UK must not be ‘complacent’.
‘It is really important not to read too much because it is really early days,’ he said. ‘We are not out of the woods, we are very much in the woods.’
Critics today labelled the UK’s efforts on testing a ‘catastrophe’ and ‘dismal’ when compared to what is being done in Germany where 500,000 tests are being carried out every week.
Rishi Sunak today announced that he is waiving import duty on medical supplies like coronavirus testing kits
Downing Street had earlier hinted at Mr Johnson’s apparent frustration at the slow progress on ramping up Britain’s capacity, with a spokesman saying he wanted ‘as much progress to be made on this as possible’.
The UK is currently managing just under 10,000 tests a day with the government having previously said it wants to get to 25,000 by the middle of April.
But today Number 10 said the timetable was ‘mid to late April’ – seemingly an admission that efforts have stalled.
Experts have insisted ‘organisation’ rather than a shortage of facilities is to blame for the painfully slow rise in checks.
However, the UK is struggling to obtain enough of the tests themselves, with Germany seemingly able to acquire them from domestic manufacturers while Britain is having to import them.
The competition for the tests was illustrated today by reports NHS England and NHS Wales ended up bidding against each other for equipment at the end of last week, prompting the four Home Nations to agree that all procurement will be done in Whitehall.
It is hoped that the Chancellor’s decision to waive customs duty and import VAT on key medical supplies will make it easier to ship in the tests.
Mr Sunak said: ‘We are taking decisive action to ensure our NHS has everything it needs to fight this outbreak.
‘Waiving import taxes on vital medical equipment such as ventilators will speed up and increase the supply of critical items going to our frontline health workers.’
However, the government will have to dramatically increase its efforts if it is to win over its critics who today slammed ministers for not doing enough.
Jeremy Hunt, the Tory chairman of the Health Select Committee, said it would be ‘very worrying’ if the UK chose not to follow the lead of the likes of Germany and South Korea.
He said mass testing allows for ‘a lot less’ disruption to daily lives because those who have the disease can be isolated and prevented from passing the virus on.
He said: ‘It is internationally proven as the most effective way of breaking the chain of transmission.
‘So however difficult it is to source the reagents, to ramp up the capacity of laboratories up and down the country, it is essential that mass community testing is part of our national strategy.’
Nigel Farage, the leader of the Brexit Party, labelled the UK’s testing efforts a ‘catastrophe’, telling MailOnline: ‘It’s an embarrassment. We do not appear to have done anything in six weeks to get ourselves in a better position on this.
‘If I was an NHS frontline worker waiting week after week after week for this I would be furious.’
He added: ‘70,000 tests a day in Germany, a million tests now conducted in America, and we in six weeks have managed to do as many tests as the Germans do in two days.
‘Everybody wants to believe in their leader during a crisis and everyone has given Boris the benefit of the doubt… I think public opinion is beginning to ask very serious questions.’
Scottish entrepreneur Duncan Bannatyne told MailOnline that the government’s ‘dismal’ handling of the testing crisis will send vast numbers of British businesses to the wall – and delay the country’s economic recovery.
The gym mogul and former Dragons’ Den star said: ‘The government must get on top of testing immediately. The longer we are in lockdown the more businesses will go bust.
‘My business hands over £39million to the Government every year in VAT, PAYE and corporation tax. As long as we are closed they get nothing.
‘Their handling of the testing issue has been dismal to say the least.’
Meanwhile, Devi Sridhar, chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh’s Medical School, suggested the UK was struggling to ramp up testing because of the strategy it had earlier adopted to the outbreak.
She tweeted that she feared the government had given up ‘on containment too early’ due an apparent belief that most people in the UK would eventually get the disease.
That resulted in ‘planning and preparing for unprecedented testing’ being ‘taken off the table’ which Ms Sridhar said she believed was the ‘wrong path’.
Germany has been conducting 500,000 tests a week and is aiming to hit 200,000 tests a day in the near future.
Part of the difference between the UK and Germany is reportedly that the latter has more tests available domestically.
There are also claims that a shipment of testing kit parts from the European mainland has been found to be contaminated with the virus, in another potential delay.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps admitted this morning that the government was struggling with the logistical challenge of increasing testing, saying it was not a ‘trivial or straightforward’ task.
‘This is never going to be enough,’ he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. ‘We always need to be pushing.’
Ministers boasted on Sunday that they had reached a target of 10,000 tests a day.
However, while the capacity had been reached, the government is yet to actually carry out that number. The latest figures from Public Health England were 8,278 in the 24 hours to 9am on Sunday, which was actually down from 9,114 the previous day.
Professor Anthony Costello, an ex-director of the World Health Organisation (WHO) who is now based at University College London, this morning dismissed the idea that the UK does not have enough laboratory facilities to process tests.
‘We need a policy of mass community testing as well as the blunt instrument of social distancing,’ he told the BBC’s Radio 4 Today programme.
‘We need to do that because we want to arrow in on detecting cases and contact and quarantine. We need to have enough tests to protect our health workers…
‘But most important when we want to loosen up the lockdown we want to have control over that.
‘There will be much less disruption if we can do that rather than isolating the entire economy.’
He went on: ‘In answer to can we do it, we have 44 molecular virology labs in the UK.
‘If they were doing 400 tests a day we would be up to Germany levels of testing and that is perfectly feasible.
Asked whether he was saying that the UK has the capacity but is just not organising it properly, Prof Costello said: ‘Yeah, correct. I don’t see why we cannot get these 44 molecular virology labs up and running, finding the cases and testing.
‘PHE were slow and controlled, and they only allowed non-PHE labs to start testing two weeks ago. But that was after the strategy shift to stopping community tests.
‘We need to be like Korea…. their death rate is three per million and they have suppressed the virus.’
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has praised countries like South Korea have for their wide-scale testing regimes, which have helped limit cases.
However, the UK shelved efforts to test everyone with symptoms on March 12, when Britain’s response moved into a ‘delay’ phase.
Instead people who thought they had the illness were urged to self-isolate unless their conditions became so severe they needed medical help.
Amid criticism, Mr Johnson then declared just under a fortnight ago that there would be a big expansion of tests from under 5,000 a day to 25,000.
Routine testing is only just being offered to NHS staff, with 800 per day expected to get access to tests. There are fears that many will have been put at risk, amid complaints that they do not even have enough personal protection kit.
A global shortage of the chemicals needed to produce coronavirus tests has emerged as another setback in the UK’s plans to test more people.
Industry bosses say chemical reagents that are used in the test are in short supply around the world as countries have scrambled to test their citizens for COVID-19.
Lab tests for the coronavirus work by regrowing a patient’s DNA in a lab and examining it to find traces of genetic material left behind by the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
For this to work, technicians need a chemical called a reagent to trigger the chemical reaction which starts the process.
There are various types of reagents which can be used in a COVID-19 test, supplied by different companies around the world, but they are in high demand everywhere. They are not unique to coronavirus and are the same reagents used in tests for illnesses such as flu.
The US has 10 different types of reagent listed in the priority list by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It is not clear whether the UK is using reagents manufactured on home soil or importing them.
Some NHS labs have now resorted to make their own in ‘home brew’ situations so they can test patients, The Times reported.
Germany has also been leading the way on testing for individuals who have already been through the virus and emerged with immunity. Such checks could potentially allow people to be issued with certificates saying they are safe to go back to work – easing the lockdown crippling the economy.
The UK government has ordered 17.5million ‘antibody’ tests, but they have yet to go through clinical trials and it is not clear when they can start being used.
A study due to start in Germany in mid-April will see the blood of more than 100,000 volunteers tested for Covid-19 antibodies.
The process will be repeated at regular intervals, with the sample scaling up to track the progress of the epidemic.
Shadow health secretary Jon Ashworth said: ‘Germany appears to be leading the way in the testing and we have much to learn from their approach.
‘I’ve repeatedly called for more testing and contact tracing in the UK, and we should be looking at initiatives like this closely.’
The scale of the problem facing the UK was underlined today with figures suggesting the death toll from the coronavirus outbreak could be 24 per cent higher than NHS figures show.
Patients who had COVID-19 mentioned on their death certificates numbered 210 in England and Wales up to March 20, the Office for National Statistics revealed.
That was 24 per cent higher than the 170 deaths recorded by NHS England and Public Health Wales during the same time frame.
If the ratio has stayed true since that time, the true current number of fatalities could be around 1,739 instead of the official 1,408.
Michael Gove admits the UK must go ‘further, faster’ to increase its coronavirus testing operation after government admits it may not hit 25,000 a day target until end of next month
Michael Gove today admitted the government’s coronavirus testing operation must go ‘further, faster’ after Downing Street suggested a target of 25,000 daily checks may not be met until the end of next month.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office said the lack of availability of crucial chemicals which are needed in the testing process was a ‘critical constraint’ on the UK’s efforts.
He said Boris Johnson and the Health Secretary Matt Hancock were now working together to try to source the globally in-demand material that Britain needs.
Speaking at the daily Downing Street press conference, Mr Gove said: ‘While the rate of testing is increasing we must go further, faster. A critical constraint on the ability to rapidly increase testing capacity is the availability of the chemical reagents which are necessary in the testing.
‘The Prime Minister and the Health Secretary are working with companies worldwide to ensure that we get the material we need to increase tests of all kinds.’
Critics today labelled the UK’s efforts a ‘catastrophe’ and ‘dismal’ when compared to what is being done in Germany where 500,000 tests are being carried out every week.
Downing Street had earlier hinted at Mr Johnsons’s apparent frustration at the slow progress on ramping up Britain’s capacity, with a spokesman saying he wants ‘as much progress to be made on this as possible’.
The UK is currently managing just under 10,000 tests a day with the government having previously said it wants to get to 25,000 by the middle of April.
But today Number 10 said the timetable was ‘mid to late April’ – seemingly an admission that efforts have stalled.
Politicians from different parties are now lining up to criticise the government’s approach while business chiefs are doing the same.
Jeremy Hunt, the Tory former health secretary, said mass testing in the community must be carried out by the government while Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage said the efforts so far were an ’embarrassment’.
Scottish entrepreneur Duncan Bannatyne told MailOnline the government’s ‘dismal’ handling of the testing crisis will send vast numbers of British businesses to the wall – and delay the country’s economic recovery.
Experts have insisted ‘organisation’ rather than a shortage of facilities is to blame for the painfully slow rise in checks.
However, there are also suggestions that the UK is struggling to obtain enough of the tests themselves, with Germany seemingly able to acquire them from domestic manufacturers while Britain is having to import them.
It came amid reports that NHS England and NHS Wales ended up bidding against each other for testing equipment at the end of last week, prompting the four Home Nations to agree that all procurement will be done in Whitehall.
Michael Gove today said the UK must go ‘further, faster’ in ramping up its coronavirus testing efforts
A nurse takes a swab from an NHS worker at a testing facility in Chessington yesterday
Germany has been conducting 500,000 tests a week and is aiming to hit 200,000 tests a day in the near future.
Part of the difference between the UK and Germany is reportedly that the latter has more tests available domestically.
There are also claims that a shipment of testing kit parts from the European mainland has been found to be contaminated with the virus, in another potential delay.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps admitted this morning that the government was struggling with the logistical challenge of increasing testing, saying it was not a ‘trivial or straightforward’ task.
‘This is never going to be enough,’ he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. We always need to be pushing.’
Ministers boasted on Sunday that they had reached a target of 10,000 tests a day.
However, while the capacity has been reached, the government has yet to actually carry out that number. The latest figures from Public Health England were 8,278 in the 24 hours to 9am on Sunday, which was actually down from 9,114 the previous day.
The numbers have sparked widespread concerns about the UK approach to testing.
Mr Hunt, the chairman of the Health Select Committee, said it would be ‘very worrying’ if the UK chose not to follow the lead of the likes of Germany and South Korea.
He said mass testing allows for ‘a lot less’ disruption to daily lives because those who have the disease can be isolated and prevented from passing the virus on.
He said: ‘It is internationally proven as the most effective way of breaking the chain of transmission.
‘So however difficult it is to source the reagents, to ramp up the capacity of laboratories up and down the country, it is essential that mass community testing is part of our national strategy.’
Mr Farage told MailOnline: ‘Testing is a catastrophe. It’s an embarrassment. We do not appear to have done anything in six weeks to get ourselves in a better position on this.
‘If I was an NHS frontline worker waiting week after week after week for this I would be furious.’
He added: ‘70,000 tests a day in Germany, a million tests now conducted in America, and we in six weeks have managed to do as many tests as the Germans do in two days.
‘Everybody wants to believe in their leader during a crisis and everyone has given Boris the benefit of the doubt… I think public opinion is beginning to ask very serious questions.’
Scottish entrepreneur Duncan Bannatyne told MailOnline that the government’s ‘dismal’ handling of the testing crisis will send vast numbers of British businesses to the wall – and delay the country’s economic recovery.
The gym mogul and former Dragons’ Den star said: ‘The Government must get on top of testing immediately. The longer we are in lockdown the more businesses will go bust.
‘My business hands over £39million to the Government every year in VAT, PAYE and corporation tax. As long as we are closed they get nothing.
‘Their handling of the testing issue has been dismal to say the least.’
Professor Anthony Costello, an ex-director of the World Health Organisation (WHO) who is now based at University College London, dismissed the idea that the UK does not have enough laboratory facilities to process the tests.
‘We need a policy of mass community testing as well as the blunt instrument of social distancing,’ he told the BBC’s Radio 4 Today programme.
‘We need to do that because we want to arrow in on detecting cases and contact and quarantine. We need to have enough tests to protect our health workers…
‘But most important when we want to loosen up the lockdown we want to have control over that.
‘There will be much less disruption if we can do that rather than isolating the entire economy.’
He went on: ‘In answer to can we do it, we have 44 molecular virology labs in the UK.
‘If they were doing 400 tests a day we would be up to Germany levels of testing and that is perfectly feasible.
Asked whether he was saying that the UK has the capacity but is just not organising it properly, Prof Costello said: ‘Yeah, correct. I don’t see why we cannot get these 44 molecular virology labs up and running, finding the cases and testing.
‘PHE were slow and controlled, and they only allowed non-PHE labs to start testing two weeks ago. But that was after the strategy shift to stopping community tests.
‘We need to be like Korea…. their death rate is three per million and they have suppressed the virus.’
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has praised countries like South Korea have for their wide-scale testing regimes, which have helped limit cases.
However, the UK shelved efforts to test everyone with symptoms on March 12, when Britain’s response moved into a ‘delay’ phase.
Instead people who thought they had the illness were urged to self-isolate unless their conditions became so severe they needed medical help.
Amid criticism, Mr Johnson then declared just under a fortnight ago that there would be a big expansion of tests from under 5,000 a day to 25,000.
Routine testing is only just being offered to NHS staff, with 800 per day expected to get access to tests. There are fears that many will have been put at risk, amid complaints that they do not even have enough personal protection kit.
A global shortage of the chemicals needed to produce coronavirus tests has emerged as another setback in the UK’s plans to test more people.
Industry bosses say chemical reagents that are used in the test are in short supply around the world as countries have scrambled to test their citizens for COVID-19.
Lab tests for the coronavirus work by regrowing a patient’s DNA in a lab and examining it to find traces of genetic material left behind by the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
For this to work, technicians need a chemical called a reagent to trigger the chemical reaction which starts the process.
There are various types of reagents which can be used in a COVID-19 test, supplied by different companies around the world, but they are in high demand everywhere. They are not unique to coronavirus and are the same reagents used in tests for illnesses such as flu.
The US has 10 different types of reagent listed in the priority list by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It is not clear whether the UK is using reagents manufactured on home soil or importing them.
Some NHS labs have now resorted to make their own in ‘home brew’ situations so they can test patients, The Times reported.
Germany has also been leading the way on testing for individuals who have already been through the virus and emerged with immunity. Such checks could potentially allow people to be issued with certificates saying they are safe to go back to work – easing the lockdown crippling the economy.
The UK government has ordered 17.5million ‘antibody’ tests, but they have yet to go through clinical trials and it is not clear when they can start being used.
A study due to start in Germany in mid-April will see the blood of more than 100,000 volunteers tested for Covid-19 antibodies.
The process will be repeated at regular intervals, with the sample scaling up to track the progress of the epidemic.
Shadow health secretary Jon Ashworth said: ‘Germany appears to be leading the way in the testing and we have much to learn from their approach.
‘I’ve repeatedly called for more testing and contact tracing in the UK, and we should be looking at initiatives like this closely.’
The scale of the problem facing the UK was underlined today with figures suggesting the death toll from the coronavirus outbreak could be 24 per cent higher than NHS figures show.
Patients who had COVID-19 mentioned on their death certificates numbered 210 in England and Wales up to March 20, the Office for National Statistics revealed.
That was 24 per cent higher than the 170 deaths recorded by NHS England and Public Health Wales during the same time frame.
If the ratio has stayed true since that time, the true current number of fatalities could be around 1,739 instead of the official 1,408.
Lord Hague today warned Mr Johnson he must show UK businesses a ‘way out’ of the coronavirus crisis by the end of April – or risk thousands of firms permanently closing their doors.
Lord Hague said many businesses will choose to shut down if they are not given ‘hope’ in the form of a government plan for what will happen after the current state of lockdown ends.
The former foreign secretary said the government’s blueprint for recovery must include a ‘massive and compulsory’ testing programme so the UK is better able to withstand future outbreaks of the deadly disease.
He said the ability to test and trace people in the way that South Korea has been doing will be key because it will give ministers the ability to contain the spread and allow businesses to stay open.
The ex-Tory leader said a failure to pursue massive testing capacity would likely result in the UK facing an economic depression rather than just a recession.
And he called for one minister to be put in charge of overseeing the development of the future action plan so they are not distracted by day-to-day events.
Where is all the testing? Huge NHS coronavirus swabbing site stands DESERTED despite urgent need for more patients and medics to be examined
By Sebastian Murphy-Bates for MailOnline
A huge NHS coronavirus swabbing site stood deserted today despite the urgent need for more patients and medics to be examined.
Pictures surfaced showing a testing site for NHS staff in Chessington, south-west London, today as the UK’s Covid-19 death rate doubled.
No tests appeared to be underway for the virus as the car park sat empty apart from workers’ cars and staff stretched outside the centre.
It came as a record-breaking 381 coronavirus deaths were announced in the UK today, taking the total to 1,789 fatalities.
It marks the darkest day so far for the NHS, which has seen patients dying by the dozen in hospitals in every corner of the country.
Meanwhile, around 30 staff at the testing site were seen standing around as nobody entered from outside all morning.
Pictured: The testing centre at one of Chessington World of Adventures’ car parks which was largely deserted this morning despite the rise in death rates from the novel coronavirus
Staff appeared to have little to do at the Chessington World of Adventures site which has been set up to test NHS workers to see if they can return to work
Pictured: The deserted car park at the testing centre designed to find out which NHS staff have had or do have the Covid-19 virus as countries battle the pandemic
Workers appeared to have little do at the Chessington testing site for NHS staff amid the coronavirus pandemic and Britain’s deadliest day so far during the crisis
Workers were seen sitting, standing around and stretching at the testing centre in Chessington, south-west London today
The drive-thru centre was established at Chessington World of Adventures and was seen up and operational from Friday to Monday.
But on Tuesday the site – which sits in one of the theme park’s car parks – was quiet as Britain’s daily fatalities figure surged more than twice as high as it was yesterday, when only 180 new fatalities were announced.
Office for National Statistics data showed today that 210 people had died in the UK by March 20, when the Government had only recorded 170 in the same time frame – a difference of almost a quarter. If that ratio remains true today the true number of fatalities could be 2,230 or more.
More deaths have been recorded in the UK, with 1,808 known fatalities when the individual tallies from Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are counted – but the official toll is lower because it cuts off at 5pm the day before, meaning the other fatalities recorded by the devolved nations will be added in to tomorrow’s count.
Pictured: The quiet and empty testing site today at Chessington World of Adventures in south-west London this morning
There was little activity at the Chessington coronavirus testing site which was set up as a drive-thru for NHS workers who need to get tested
Pictured: The quiet Chessington coronavirus swabbing site this morning where no NHS staff were seen entering for testing
One of the new victims was just 19 years old, from London, and didn’t have any other health conditions, making them the UK’s youngest otherwise-healthy patient to have died.
More than 3,000 infection cases were also recorded today, taking the UK’s official outbreak size past 25,000 – but the true number remains a mystery because of the controversial policy to only test patients in hospital and not those with mild symptoms.
Some scientists have suggested up to half of the population may have already been infected but Government advisers suggest the figure is closer to the 2million mark.
On Thursday the government announced that it would be rolling out tests in an attempt to boost numbers on the front line.
Hospitals have been recording staff absence rates of up to 50 per cent as staff or members of their households develop symptoms which means they are forced to self-isolate as they do not know if they are safe to work.
Michael Gove, who was standing in for the prime minister at the daily briefing, said: ‘Increasing our testing capacity is absolutely crucial in our response to and our fight against coronavirus.
‘This is a particular priority for those who work in the health and social care sector and are working so hard to keep us all safe.’
The tests for NHS employees started with those who are critical care medics or intensive care staff but also includes those working in emergency departments, ambulance services and GPs.
Sir Simon Stevens, chief executive of the NHS, said that as testing volumes increased the service would be expanded to cover a range of essential public workers such as social care services.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: ‘The Chessington site has already tested hundreds of NHS key workers since being established in recent days and will play a vital role as national COVID-19 testing infrastructure is scaled up.
‘Testing is a crucial part of the UK’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and we have committed to boosting NHS testing to at least 25,000 a day for patients most in need, as well as testing thousands of healthcare workers a day in the near future.’
