A thread on testing capacity-the Government have long said they intend to have testing capacity up to 500k a day by 31st Oct-capacity has been increasing rapidly in recent weeks from 248k a day at start of Sept to 310k at start of Oct to 467k on 28th (up 98k in 5 days).But..(1/8)
..testing capacity is theoretical. The Govt webpage says "Testing capacity is a projection based on reports from labs on how many lab-based tests they have capacity to carry out each day based on availability of staff and resources."
So its a projection,not what is happening(2/8)
So its a projection,not what is happening(2/8)
The turnaround time for tests is critical which is why the PM promised that all test results would be returned within 24 hours by the end of June. At the moment,22% of test results are back within 24 hours from mobile testing centres and its 3.5% for postal tests.
(3/8)
(3/8)
Test,trace and isolate can only be effective if test results are back quickly which is why Boris Johnson made that promise which shows no sign of being met. Capacity is meaningless if results take days (or weeks) to process. (4/8)
In terms of the number of tests actually being done, note that this is NOT people tested despite the original pledge to have 100k people tested a day by the end of April. This morphed into 100k tests as people were having multiple tests which were all being counted (5/8)
As a result of this daily figures for the number of people tested have never been disclosed- we now have the weekly figures from test & trace which tell us for example that in the week 15-21st Oct 1,519,977 people were tested or 217,139 people a day. (6/8)
The Gov webpage tells us that 2,082,458 tests were done in that period so listen out for Ministers conflating tests done with people tested as they are not the same.
But looking at the Gov figures for tests "processed" in the last week they average 311k, well short of 500k.(7/8)
But looking at the Gov figures for tests "processed" in the last week they average 311k, well short of 500k.(7/8)
So even if Gov proclaim success at hitting 500k tests tomorrow, remember-
Its a theoretical capacity
Its not people
The actual number of tests processed is much lower
And if results take too long to come back its nowhere near as effective as it should be(8/8)
Its a theoretical capacity
Its not people
The actual number of tests processed is much lower
And if results take too long to come back its nowhere near as effective as it should be(8/8)
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
