Testing Reality
There's a link to the .Gov.uk webpages where the definitions and data come from at the bottom.
In the interest of clarity and transparency I thought it important to include data and definitions in the level of detail I have, rather than just say the Government hasn't so much as hoodwinked us all and is lying through it's teeth as become divorced from the truth and lost custody of whatever honesty it wasn’t already estranged from.
Feel free to defend this as you see fit, it’s straight from the Government's own mouth using their facts and figures. It’s clearly your own fault if you didn’t bother to check any of this easy to find section of their website to see if the Government had moved the goalposts 4 days after Matt Hancock announced his 100,000 tests a day target.<sarcastic face>
As of 5pm on 30 April, of those who tested positive for coronavirus in the UK, 27,510 have died. This new figure includes deaths in all settings, not just in hospitals. The equivalent figure under the old measure would have been 23,229.
Our testing strategy has five pillars
The first pillar is boosting swab testing – testing to find out if you have the virus – by PHE and NHS labs for patients and frontline workers in the NHS
The second pillar is the creation of brand-new swab testing capacity delivered by commercial partners.
The third pillar is antibody tests, which are designed to detect if people have had the virus and are now immune.
The fourth pillar is surveillance testing to learn more about the disease and help develop new tests and treatments
The fifth pillar is the most ambitious. Just as our top end manufacturers have joined the national effort to build ventilators, so our life sciences companies will do the same for testing. UK pharmaceutical giants which do not have a tradition of diagnostics, are now working with our world leading but smaller diagnostics companies, to build a British diagnostics industry at scale. This new national effort for testing will ensure we can get tests for everyone who needs them.
As of 9am on 1 May, there have been 1,023,824 tests, with 122,347 tests on 30 April.
The number of tests includes tests processed through our labs and
tests sent to individuals at home or to satellite testing locations.
Tests 30/04/2020
122,347 Tests
73,191 People tested
Pillar 1 39,753
Pillar 2 79,522
Pillar 4 3,072
Pillar 2: swab testing for health, social care and other essential workers and their households
Pillar 2 breakdown of test types
In-person routes 39,153
Delivery routes 40,369
Total tests 79,522
-Delivery routes 40,369
Total tests 39,153
People tested (Govt Official total 73,191 - Delivery routes 40,369)
32,822 (33,455 people tested 29/04/2020)
Actual Tests 30/04/2020
People tested 32,822 (73,191) (33,455 people tested 29/04/2020)
Pillar 1 39,753 (39,753)
Pillar 2 39,153 (79,522)
Pillar 4 3,072 (3,072)
Total Actual Tests 81,978 vs Declared Government Total Tests 122,347 (81,611 Declared Government Total Tests 29/04/2020)
scaling up our coronavirus covid-19 testing programmes
