The British government faced fierce criticism over its Covid-19 testing programme on Tuesday with a backlog caused by a surge in demand and a shortage of laboratory staff.
Hospitals said doctors had been forced to stay at home because they could not obtain tests to ensure they were not infectious, even before the expected surge of cases this winter.
Leaked documents have suggested that the UK is facing a backlog of almost 200,000 Covid-19 tests, with some being sent abroad for processing despite the government promising a world-beating contact-tracing system in May.
More than 200,000 tests are being carried out every day but demand is much higher after pupils returned to school and as the government pushes for a return to work.
The government has opened seven large laboratories to improve testing and is appealing to recent graduates with a degree in biology to sign up for work, reports say.
Technicians who signed on short-term contracts have returned to their day jobs, while Covid fatigue and holidays hampered efforts in August.
Receiving, unpacking and preparing samples for testing requires “heavy-duty manual labour” that needs to be addressed, a government adviser said.
The giant laboratories, known as Lighthouse Labs, are looking at part-time roles for students with previous experience to fill the gaps.
More than 41,000 people have died in the UK from Covid-19, the fifth-highest toll in the world.
New cases have risen sharply to more than 2,500 a day but are less than half the daily total during the worst of the first wave.
There were widespread reports that no tests were available in the worst hit areas and that there was a crisis in hospitals.
The latest damaging headlines followed reports that people with symptoms were being asked to drive hundreds of kilometres for testing.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson last week announced Operation Moonshot, a plan to expand testing from hundreds of thousands of tests each day to 10 million by early 2021, but doctors said the programme was already in crisis.
The Government response has been to rely on a random, impressive sounding, overall statistic
Chris Hopson, chief executive of National Health Service hospitals in England, expressed his frustration.
“The government has always seemed more concerned with managing the political implications of operational problems rather than being open and honest about them,” Mr Hopson said.
He said hospitals were “working in the dark” because they were not being told how long the shortages would last.
“The government response has been to rely on a random, impressive sounding, overall statistic or to set out a bold future ambition – a world-class test and trace service by June, or a moonshot testing regime at some point next year.
“Both approaches ignore the operational problem at hand. Neither helps the frontline organisations that actually have to deal with the problem.”
Matt Hancock, the UK Health Secretary, said last week there had been “challenges” but claimed by far most people could get their tests quickly and close to home.
The World Health Organisation said on Monday that testing programmes were one of the basics that needed to be done well to allow societies to reopen safely.
Mr Johnson has promised to deliver a “world-beating” testing strategy.
His Moonshot programme is set to cost more than £100 billion (Dh473.04bn), leaked documents show.
But Dr John Bell, an immunologist who advised the government, said the UK was “definitely behind the curve” in testing capacity.
“This will get worse because we haven’t had winter yet,” Mr Bell told the BBC. “The demand will go up.
"The real questions is if they can get supply in a position where it can outstrip demand.”
He said the shortage of staff should be “relatively easy to solve" but played down the government’s ambitions on mass testing by next year.
“Let’s back off the 10 million a day, that I think is a hard lift,” Dr Bell said.
He told the BBC that he advised the government not to describe the programme as Moonshot.
“Apollo 13 was great, Challenger was not so great,” Dr Bell said, referring to the 1986 Space Shuttle disaster in which seven people died.
_________________
Coronavirus testing in Britain
There are two main Covid-19 tests in the UK to find out whether someone has a current or past infection.
Antigen Tests
Antigen, or virus tests, are used to check if a person has coronavirus. They involve taking a swab sample from the nose and throat. The swab is then sent to a laboratory for a test to check the genetic material of the virus.
Antibody Tests
Antibody tests look for proteins that the body makes to fight off infections in a patient’s blood sample. Antibodies are a sign that a person previously had Covid-19.
It is not yet clear if antibodies protect people from another infection, or how long that protection might last.
The tests are mostly useful for researchers measuring what portion of the population was infected.
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
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Who are the Sacklers?
The Sackler family is a transatlantic dynasty that owns Purdue Pharma, which manufactures and markets OxyContin, one of the drugs at the centre of America's opioids crisis. The family is well known for their generous philanthropy towards the world's top cultural institutions, including Guggenheim Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, Tate in Britain, Yale University and the Serpentine Gallery, to name a few. Two branches of the family control Purdue Pharma.
Isaac Sackler and Sophie Greenberg were Jewish immigrants who arrived in New York before the First World War. They had three sons. The first, Arthur, died before OxyContin was invented. The second, Mortimer, who died aged 93 in 2010, was a former chief executive of Purdue Pharma. The third, Raymond, died aged 97 in 2017 and was also a former chief executive of Purdue Pharma.
It was Arthur, a psychiatrist and pharmaceutical marketeer, who started the family business dynasty. He and his brothers bought a small company called Purdue Frederick; among their first products were laxatives and prescription earwax remover.
Arthur's branch of the family has not been involved in Purdue for many years and his daughter, Elizabeth, has spoken out against it, saying the company's role in America's drugs crisis is "morally abhorrent".
The lawsuits that were brought by the attorneys general of New York and Massachussetts named eight Sacklers. This includes Kathe, Mortimer, Richard, Jonathan and Ilene Sackler Lefcourt, who are all the children of either Mortimer or Raymond. Then there's Theresa Sackler, who is Mortimer senior's widow; Beverly, Raymond's widow; and David Sackler, Raymond's grandson.
Members of the Sackler family are rarely seen in public.
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Abu Dhabi
Umm Al Emarat Park
Yas Gateway Park
Delma Park
Al Bateen beach
Saadiyaat beach
The Corniche
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Dubai
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Mushrif Park
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Al Mamzar Beach Park
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The specs: 2018 BMW R nineT Scrambler
Price, base / as tested Dh57,000
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Transmission Six-speed gearbox
Power 110hp) @ 7,750rpm
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Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
Specs
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Power: 218hp (Cooper and Aceman), 313hp (Countryman)
Torque: 330Nm (Cooper and Aceman), 494Nm (Countryman)
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BMW M5 specs
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Torque: 1,000Nm
Transmission: 8-speed auto
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The specs: 2017 GMC Sierra 1500 Denali
Price, base / as tested Dh207,846 / Dh220,000
Engine 6.2L V8
Transmission Eight-speed automatic
Power 420hp @ 5,600rpm
Torque 624Nm @ 4,100rpm
Fuel economy, combined 13.5L / 100km
The specs
- Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
- Power: 640hp
- Torque: 760nm
- On sale: 2026
- Price: Not announced yet
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Test series fixtures
(All matches start at 2pm UAE)
1st Test Lord's, London from Thursday to Monday
2nd Test Nottingham from July 14-18
3rd Test The Oval, London from July 27-31
4th Test Manchester from August 4-8
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