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UK coronavirus live: up to four times as many people may be wanting Covid tests as can get them, MPs told UK coronavirus live: up to four times as many people may be wanting Covid tests as can get them, MPs told
(32 minutes later)
Dido Harding gives evidence to Commons science committee; new restrictions placed on nearly 2 million people in north-east EnglandDido Harding gives evidence to Commons science committee; new restrictions placed on nearly 2 million people in north-east England
Q: What proportion of people asked to self-isolate develop Covid?
Harding says she does not know.
They do not test people asked to self-isolate.
If people tested negative, then they might go back to work when it was not safe to do so, she says.
Harding also said turnaround times have got longer because the service is processing more tests. That was deliberate, she said.
Clark says if two-thirds of people are not getting their test results within 24 hours, that is a failure.
Should NHS test and trace be measuring time taken from a person getting a test to contacts being asked to self-isolate?
Harding says NHS test and trace is judged by many metrics.
One target is for 80% of people testing positive to be reached so they can be asked about their contacts. She says the service is reaching 83.3%.
And it is meant to reach 80% of close contacts. And it is reaching 86.6% of close contacts where contact details have been provided, she says.
But she accepts that reducing the end-to-end time taken is important.
Clark says the PM’s target was for 24-hour turnaround. Yet Harding is quoting next day turnaround. What are the figures for 24-hour turnaround?
Harding says they focus on next day turnaround.
Clark quotes the 24-hour figure - 33.3%. (See 11.49am.) He says 24-hour turnaround is important. The government’s Scientific Advisory Committee for Emergencies said test results had to be delivered quickly. The sooner they are delivered, the sooner those being tested, and their contacts, can be asked to self-isolate.
Labour’s Graham Stringer goes next.
Q: How did you become interim executive chair of the National Institute for Health Protection? (This is the body replacing Public Health England - Harding holds this post alongside being head of NHS Test and Trace.)
Harding says she did not apply. She was asked to do this job. And she accepted because she wanted to serve her country. She is working unpaid, she says. And she says a permanent chair will be appointed.
Clark says the PM promised in June that there would be 100% turnaround within 24 hours.
Harding says they have mostly delivered 90% next day turnaround.
Q: The figure for home test kits is 9%.
Harding says she is quoting figures for in-person tests. Home tests have always taken longer, because kits go into the post.
She says they have been prioritising in-person tests because they can be processed more quickly.
Q: At one point ministers suggested home tests were the solution?
Harding says that made sense at the time, but in-person testing is faster.
Harding says test results are taking “slightly longer than usual”, as today’s figures showed. (See 11.49am.)
Harding says there will be substantial increases in lab capacity every week between now and the end of October.
She says robotic processing capacities are being introduced.
Additional laboratories are being created, including one in Newport.
A number of different initiatives will take capacity to 500,000 tests per day by the end of October, she says.
She is “very confident” this will be met, she says.
Harding says the number of tests being processed abroad is in the low tens of thousands.Harding says the number of tests being processed abroad is in the low tens of thousands.
The Labour MP Dawn Butler asked about reports that Randox, one of the private firms processing tests, was unable to process thousands of tests. Was it paid for these?The Labour MP Dawn Butler asked about reports that Randox, one of the private firms processing tests, was unable to process thousands of tests. Was it paid for these?
Harding says she cannot comment, because this episode is still being investigated, she says.Harding says she cannot comment, because this episode is still being investigated, she says.
Harding says for a couple of days last week laboratories were running at over 100% of capacity. She says they were worried about that - implying there were concerns about whether processes could be properly followed like that.Harding says for a couple of days last week laboratories were running at over 100% of capacity. She says they were worried about that - implying there were concerns about whether processes could be properly followed like that.
Harding says there are two to three times as many people being tested in high prevalence areas.Harding says there are two to three times as many people being tested in high prevalence areas.
Q: Is is true London council leaders have been told its testing capacity is being cut by 20%?
Harding says the number of tests allocated for London has come down, because of the need to prioritise places where the case numbers are higher. But she says she cannot confirm the 20% figure.
Harding says she knows that people find it frustrating seeing testing centres empty.
But the constraints are in the laboratories, she says. She says there is no point giving people tests if they cannot be processed. That would lead to people not getting results, she says.
More from Dido Harding’s evidence to the science committee
This is what Dido Harding told the committee about what the level of demand for tests is. She said:
Asked for an estimate of what the demand was, she replied: “It is multiples of the test capacity that we have today.”
Dido Harding is giving evidence to the Commons science committee now.
Greg Clark, the Conservative MP who chairs the committee, goes first.
Asked what the testing capacity is, Harding says it is 242,817. She says 82,817 is NHS capacity, and 160,000 is pillar 2 capacity (commercial testing at places such as drive-through centres).
Q: What is the demand for tests?
Harding says it is hard to say. People sometimes try to book a test more than once, using different devices. But she says that the figure will be “multiples” of what the capacity is.
Q: How do you know that 27% of people are seeking a test when they don’t have symptoms? When booking, they have to say they have symptoms.
Harding says the organisation has used post-test surveys to find this out.
NHS England has recorded a further 18 coronavirus hospital deaths. The full details are here.
In Scotland there have been no further deaths, but 290 new cases, with 4% of people testing positive. (Yesterday’s figure was 3.6%.)
Public Health Wales has recorded three new deaths and 168 new cases.
And in Northern Ireland there have been 149 new cases, but no further deaths.
The Commons science committee has been taking evidence from Thomas Waite, director of the Joint Biosecurity Centre. He was asked about the claim floated by Anthony Costello last night that infections could be running at 38,000 per day. (See 9.06am.) He said “that’s not a figure I directly recognise” and went on to say that it may come from one of the many models SPI-M has. “SPI-M have a number of different models and there is a value in that,” he said.
Asked by Greg Clark, the committee chair, if it sounds about right that there are about 10 times as many infections as are picked up, he said: “I don’t think that sounds right.”
Back to coronavirus, and this is from Tom Copley, the deputy mayor of London for housing.
Here is some reaction to the government’s latest statement on the internal market bill (see 2.21pm) from Brexit specialist commentators on Twitter.
From the Times’ Bruno Waterfield
From my colleague Daniel Boffey
From Times Radio’s Tom Newton Dunn
From the Financial Times’ Peter Foster
From Raoul Ruparel, EU adviser to Theresa May when she was PM
From Prof Mark Elliott, professor of public law at Cambridge University
From Katy Hayward, an academic and Brexit specialist at Queen’s University, Belfast
From the Economist’s Matthew Holehouse
Nicola Sturgeon was pressed at FMQs about visiting guidelines for care facilities, after families of care home residents lobbied members outside Holyrood yesterday, calling for a relaxation in “draconian” visiting guidelines.
Sturgeon said that she understood how difficult this time was for people who had loved ones in care homes, adding that “visiting is a fundamental part of health and wellbeing. She said that around 40% of homes were now facilitating indoor visits, but that she also recognised that wider principle was at stake, not just about visiting but also about recognising the role of family members play in caring for their relatives.
She said that the health secretary would be meeting family members campaigning for better visiting facilities tomorrow, and that she “hoped to open up further options for families as soon as it is safe to do so”. But she added that, having facing ongoing criticism about numbers of care home deaths, nobody should doubt “the real weight of responsibility we feel in reaching these decisions”.
Sturgeon also confirmed that there were 290 new Covid cases yesterday, with 112 in Greater Glasgow and Clyde and 52 in Lanarkshire, where a ban on indoor gatherings between households remains in place, as well as 47 in Lothian.