A former director at the World Health Organization, Anthony Costello, says that the UK has the capacity to process tens of thousands more tests for coronavirus but has failed to organise itself properly, according to a report in The Guardian.
Anthony Costello, now a global health professor at University College London, called for the UK to make use of testing machines in every university and big hospital around the country, setting up mobile testing units like Ireland, which is testing far more people per head of population.
The UK is still only managing to test 5,000 people a day by Sunday morning, still far short of the 70,000 a day that Germany is conducting, which is causing growing concern.
Critics are also questioning the UK’s decision only to test people in hospitals and NHS workers, arguing that a return to testing more widely will ultimately be necessary to suppress the virus.
Full story in The Guardian, 31 March 2020