For those of you who have been following the daily tweets pointing out how the figures for the number of people tested for coronavirus each day have disappeared, the new Gov stats site has the following message (1/6)
It says "The ‘people tested’ measure was initially used to avoid counting one person tested several times in a short space of time. It no longer usefully reflects the volume of tests carried out as, for example, a healthcare worker receiving their second, third..." (2/6)
"...or fourth test since the start of the pandemic would not be counted as they have been tested once before. Therefore, the people tested figure will be published on a weekly basis within the NHS Test and Trace statistics rather than daily." (3/6)
This is an interesting explanation given the suspicion was the same test on one person was being counted more than once (throat counts as one and nasal counts as one), but it has taken them 45 days to come up with this (4/6)
The UK Statistics Authority said of test numbers "The aim seems to be to show the largest possible number of tests, even at the expense of understanding". This is probably why the target was subtly changed from "people" to "capacity". (5/6)
The stats now available only start on 28th May (a week after the numbers disappeared) & are only available per week.But taking them as a guide for the average number in a day it seems they have never hit the 100,000 people a day target & often don't even hit half that number(6/6)
