During September 2020, the Science and Technology Committee heard from Baroness Harding that NHS Test and Trace had “planned for a sizeable increase” but that she “[did] not think anybody was expecting” the level of demand experienced.301 She explained one reason for the surge was that a proportion of ineligible individuals were showing up to receive covid-19 tests: we have been running some surveys […] 27% [of visitors to walk-in testing sites] said they were there because they had been in contact with someone who had tested positive, but they did not have symptoms themselves.302 This should not have been quite so unpredictable given previous advice by the then Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to get a test “if in doubt and if people think they might have the symptoms”.303 The demand for testing might also have been compounded by an issue later raised by Professor Sir John Bell that “95% of people with [perceived] symptoms do not have the disease”.304