167
SAGE minutes from 28 January 2020 recorded that notwithstanding the scientific lead in establishing a...
Conclusion
SAGE minutes from 28 January 2020 recorded that notwithstanding the scientific lead in establishing a test, PHE only had operational capacity to administer “400 to 500 tests per day” for the whole country.248 Other countries such as South Korea and Hong Kong, who did not benefit from our lead in producing a test, nevertheless rapidly developed a testing capacity to allow a comprehensive testing programme to be put in place during the early weeks of the pandemic.249 By contrast, during the whole, crucial, period between 25 January and 11 March 2020, in which the virus was spreading across the whole country, only 27,476 coronavirus tests were performed in the UK.250 To put this in context, that is less than one test a day for each parliamentary constituency.
Government Response
Acknowledged
Government Response
Acknowledged
HM Government
Acknowledged
In respect of test, trace and isolate, the government will build on the legacy of the response to this pandemic. As the government has set out in the ‘Living with COVID- 19’ strategy,2 this includes ensuring that a resilient and scalable infrastructure is in place to protect the public from new and existing threats to health. It will involve working closely with local authorities to ensure they have the knowledge, experience, and capability to support future contact tracing arrangements and to draw down expert advice to deploy for greatest public health benefit; for example the capacity to respond to future public health emergencies. UKHSA, established during the pandemic, will also maintain the well-established relationships with local tracing arrangements within all local authorities.
Source
Inquiry
Coronavirus: lessons learnt
Report
Third Report - Coronavirus: lessons learned to date
12 Oct 2021
HC 92
Addressee Bodies
Department for Science, Innovation and Technology
Timeline
Recommendation age
4.6 yrs
Report published
12 Oct 2021