Testing shambles spirals as desperate Boris Johnson blames chemical shortage

Ministers were accused of ‘complacence’ and snubbing offers of help from labs today as Boris Johnson struggles to get a grip on the UK’s coronavirus testing shambles. 

The government is desperately trying to ramp up the number of checks carried out, with experts warning that is the only way to end the lockdown threatening to dismantle the economy.

But the PM faces mounting fury over the failure to get anywhere near the levels being carried out in countries like Germany – which is carrying out more than 70,000 a day, while the UK is still well below 10,000. 

Cabinet minister Michael Gove blamed a global shortage of chemicals at a press conference last night, saying Mr Johnson was taking personal control of trying to source the material.

But within hours he was extraordinarily contradicted by firms, with a statement from the Chemical Industry Association saying despite an ‘escalating demand’ the ‘reagents’ for tests ‘are being manufactured and delivered to the NHS’. 

One of the government’s own scientific advisers, Peter Openshaw of Imperial college, said in an interview last night that he ‘wasn’t aware’ of the problem. ‘As far as I know there isn’t a great shortage of supply,’ he said.

Meanwhile, there are complaints that logistical blunders are hampering efforts to increase capacity. The ‘centralised’ approach by Public Health England (PHE) meant that labs have been left ‘sitting on their hands’, while Germany has authorised any institution with the right capability to get on with checks. 

The consequences of the lack of testing for who currently has the virus was laid bare last night when it emerged that in initial trials 85 per cent of NHS staff who were isolating did not in fact have the virus – meaning they could have been working. 

Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick today admitted that the level of screening had only been rising slowly, but suggested it would ‘accelerate’. However, he confirmed it will be weeks before the UK hits 25,000 tests a day, by which time the outbreak might be peaking. 

In an increasingly frantic bid to quell the backlash, hospitals have today been ordered to use any spare lab space to test self-isolating NHS staff for coronavirus as ministers.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock has intervened to end the embarrassing situation where thousands of tests have been unused and a vast NHS swabbing station also stood deserted yesterday.  

A source said the Mr Hancock had now scrapped a rule that 85 per cent of tests were reserved for patients, regardless of how many needed testing. 

The developments came after the UK was rocked by the announcement of a record-breaking 381 coronavirus deaths, taking the total to 1,789 fatalities. 

Despite ministers insisting at the weekend that 10,000 tests were being carried out a day, it emerged last night that only 8,240 patients had been screened over the past 24 hours. 

Pictures of a huge NHS coronavirus swabbing site showed it standing deserted yesterday 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, as the UK’s coronavirus death rate doubled – while one at Ikea in Wembley was also quiet.

No tests appeared to be underway for the virus as the Chessington car park sat empty apart from workers’ cars and staff stretched outside the centre. 

And it has also emerged that a British firm producing millions of pounds worth of coronavirus tests is selling most of them abroad as the UK doesn’t have enough laboratories to use them.  Novacyt has made £17.8million selling its testing equipment to more than 80 countries via its Southampton-based subsidiary Primerdesign. But only £1million worth has been sold to the UK.   

Mr Johnson is taking control of ensuring chemicals vital to test kits arrive in the UK amid the criticism. Mr Gove said at yesterday’s Downing Street press conference: ‘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.’

However, the claims of a shortage seemed to take the industry by surprise. The Chemical Industries Association said: ‘While there is of course an escalating demand, there are reagents being manufactured and delivered to the NHS.

‘Every business here in the UK and globally is looking at what they can do to help meet the demand as a matter of urgency.’ 

Trying to explain the discrepancy this morning, Mr Jenrick told BBC Breakfast: ‘The chemicals industry have rightly said that in the UK we produce a number of the ingredients to produce the tests that we need.

‘But to produce a reliable test you need to have a range of ingredients and not all of them, as I understand it, have always been available in the UK in the quantities that we need.

‘But we are working with British manufacturers, as much as we possibly can and they have been extremely helpful and supportive in trying to ramp up production.’

Asked if the lack of chemicals was the reason for the delay, Mr Jenrick said: ‘That is one of the reasons – that we have some of the ingredients, but not all of them. But the good news is that production is now increasing.’

He said other reasons for the delay in ramping up testing are ‘the availability of the right infrastructure’ and ‘a very high degree of demand’ for tests making importing from overseas difficult.

Tory MP Tobias Ellwood pointed out that Germany had firms like Roche based in the country, which is a leader in biotech. ‘They are able to these things on site. We have a supply chain to deal with… there is a global competition for these products,’ he told BBC Newsnight. 

Scientists have accused health chiefs of snubbing their help, as experts at the Francis Crick Institute and Oxford University told the Daily Telegraph that Public Health England had left them ‘sitting on their hands’. 

Oxford University has 119 machines that can be used to identify tell-tale genetic signs of the virus, but Government officials have only so far accepted one. 

Professor Matthew Freeman of Oxford University’s Dunn School of Pathology, said: ‘We have another 118 machines that can broadly do the same job, but they don’t appear to be part of PHE’s plans. They could be adapted easily.’ 

The Francis Crick Institute has supplied five machines to the NHS, but has dozens more that aren’t being utilised in the fight against the pandemic.  

Meanwhile, there are accusations that the government never planned for a situation where they would need to carry out mass testing. 

‘The UK was complacent and didn’t think it could happen here,’ said Tim Colbourn, associate professor of global health epidemiology at University College London. ‘We didn’t see the signs quickly.’ 

The Mail revealed today that a British firm is selling kits to 80 countries, including India. 

Novacyt said a shortage of NHS testing facilities had prevented further UK sales. 

Separately, a former World Health Organisation chief said yesterday the Government’s health protection agency had been ‘slow’ over testing and that 44 labs were underused.

Science Committee chair Greg Clark, a former Cabinet minister, told MailOnline the reasons for the difficulty ramping up testing was still ‘unexplained’. 

‘There are NHS workers now who are having to be self-isoated and not working because they have symptoms, but don’t know whether they are infected or not

‘If you stretch the NHS that is a big problem.

‘It would be much better in information terms to know more accurately how many people in the population have it at the moment.

‘We simply don’t know. We know sadly who has died of it, but not who has it. 

Mr Clark said there had been a clear shift from focusing on testing at the start of the crisis, to merely slowing the outbreak the ‘delay’ phase.

‘I think it is an operation thing, that they didn’t mobilise enough capacity in testing to be able to supply the needs of the country,’ he said.

‘Other countries such as Japan and South Korea have had a decentralised model of testing,

‘Any lab that can test has been requisitioned for testing. What the PHE approach has been is to use their own labs. They started off at a single lab… then they moved to 122 labs and then more.

‘My question on that is why do it in stages, why wasn’t every lab even in the public sector used initially? And why unlike in Germany and SOuth Korea why have we not made extensive use of labs in universities for example and the private sector.’

In a chink of optimism for the government, Mr Clark said while the antigen testing for who currently has the disease was ‘important’ the antibody test was what would be ‘crucial for the relief of the lockdown’.

‘That would be the big gamechanger. It is very unfortunate that we haven’t had the degree of antigen testing that other countries have had but if we deploy this at the scale of millions they are talking about that would allow us to catch up and be ahead of other countries.’

A drive-thru test 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 the true number of fatalities could be 2,230 or more.  

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.’

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. 

Andy Burnham, a former health secretary and now Labour mayor of Greater Manchester, said ministers had implied they would have hit 25,000 tests a day by now.

He added: ‘Widespread testing is a crucial weapon in the fight against this virus, both in terms of stopping its spread in the community, reassuring the public and getting frontline staff back to work.

‘We need a national effort to help the Government hit its testing targets and that needs to start now.’

Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran said: ‘The Government needs to move faster on this; mass testing will help reduce the spread of the virus, better protect the key workers who are putting their lives on the line, and help the economy by allowing those who have had the virus to come out of isolation.’

Testing is particularly important for NHS staff as many are self-isolating for up to 14 days when either themselves or family members are showing virus symptoms.

 

Britain didn’t properly prepare for coronavirus testing because it planned to rely on discredited ‘herd immunity’ strategy, claims leading scientist 

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. 

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 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.

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 labs ‘can’t cope’ with mass coronavirus testing, meaning millions of British-made swabbing kits are being sold OVERSEAS

By Matt Oliver for the Daily Mail

A British firm producing millions of pounds worth of coronavirus tests is selling most of them abroad as the UK doesn’t have enough laboratories to use them.

Novacyt has made £17.8million selling its testing equipment to more than 80 countries via its Southampton-based subsidiary Primerdesign.

But only £1million worth has been sold to the UK, raising questions about why Britain is not buying more at a time when there are global shortages of tests.

When asked why the UK had not bought more kits and ramped up testing more quickly, Novacyt group marketing manager Achilleas Neophytou claimed UK laboratory capacity was a ‘limiting factor’.

This included staff available to carry out testing as well as the need for chemicals, he said. But last night a Public Health England (PHE) spokesman claimed Novacyt was not providing more tests because it was ‘not able to offer the guaranteed continuity of supply we were looking for’.

Ministers are battling to increase testing to 25,000 patients per day by mid-April, but figures remained below 10,000 per day last weekend.

Mr Neophytou said: ‘Even if we delivered ten times the number of kits to the Government, the limiting factor is still capacity of testing and that comes more and more under strain if laboratory staff go into self-isolation.

‘A huge lab could also be brought below capacity if you do not have the consumables and instruments you need to run the tests.

‘We are supplying 21 hospitals in the UK. Some of those serve other hospitals across the country. Some do not have the internal capacity to do these tests.

‘So the number of testing kits is not truly representative of what the actual testing capacity of the country is at the moment.’ 

Novacyt said it is currently supplying 21 NHS hospitals with Covid-19 tests, which are processed by experts in labs.

It is in discussions with PHE about providing more tests, Mr Neophytou said. However, orders for its kit – which can return test results in two hours – have surged internationally, with regulators in the US, Argentina, the Philippines and Indonesia all fast-tracking the product for use by medical professionals.

Novacyt said it has sold £1.4million worth of tests to India alone, while countries in the Middle East have bought another £1.6million worth.

It is ramping up production with the help of Manchester-based Yourgene and says it will soon be capable of producing four million tests per month.

Novacyt is one of several organisations working with health authorities to roll out wider testing for the coronavirus.

Last week the Government said it was also working with dozens of universities, research institutes and companies to create three new ‘hub laboratories’ to supplement testing already being carried out.

Test makers Randox and Thermo Fisher are involved in these efforts, as well as Amazon, Royal Mail, Boots and the Wellcome Trust.

Universities have donated testing machines and volunteered staff to work in the new facilities, with hopes it will help ramp up the UK testing regime.

There are separate efforts as well to develop so-called rapid tests that do not need to be carried out in laboratories, although PHE is still reviewing these and has not yet recommended them for widespread use.

The World Health Organisation has called on countries to ‘test, test, test’, saying it is the best way to track the coronavirus outbreak and help bring down infection rates.

Cabinet office minister Michael Gove said the Government was increasing the amount of testing.

But during a daily Press conference, he admitted: ‘One of the constraints on our capacity to increase testing overall is the supply of the specific reagents, the specific chemicals that are needed in order to make sure that tests are reliable.’

Last night the Department of Health suggested the tests provided by Novacyt were not as efficient as those being offered by other companies.

They also claimed that the tests wouldn’t avoid the issue of the shortage of chemical reagents, as highlighted by the Government.