Coronavirus: UK likely to be 'very close' to meeting COVID-19 testing target
The housing secretary says the government has overseen a "very substantial increase in testing in quite a short period of time".
Friday 1 May 2020 11:24, UK
The government will either meet its coronavirus testing target or be "very close", a minister has told Sky News.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock had pledged that the UK would be conducting 100,000 daily tests for COVID-19 by the end of April.
Speaking at the government's daily coronavirus news conference, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said 81,611 tests had been carried out on Wednesday.
Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick said Thursday's figures would be released later.
"I think we will have either met it or be very close," he told Sky News.
"In that sense the target will have succeeded because it will have galvanised people across government, in the private sector and across the country to build the network that we needed to, which is the foundation of testing, tracking and tracing, which we need in the next phase of fighting the virus."
He added: "This in itself is just a stepping stone.
"We need to go beyond 100,000, but we have now seen a very substantial increase in testing in quite a short period of time.
"In that sense, it's been a success. But there's more to be done."
His cabinet colleague Robert Buckland told Sky News on Thursday it was "probable" that the UK would not meet the target.
However, he did say the milestone would be hit in the "next few days".
NHS Providers, which represents hospitals and NHS trusts in England, has previously said the target is a "red herring" which distracts from shortcomings in the long-term COVID-19 strategy.
Mr Jenrick was speaking after the PM led his first daily coronavirus briefing in more than a month following his recovery from COVID-19.
Mr Johnson said the UK was past the peak of infections and promised to set out a "comprehensive plan" next week for how the lockdown could be eased.
Mr Jenrick told Sky News that the UK now had to "build some headroom" when it comes to the R value, which measures the number of people that one infected person will pass COVID-19 on to.
The R value needs to stay under one in order to avoid coronavirus cases beginning to increase at speed.
"There isn't an exact figure as to where the R is - it's somewhere, the chief medical officer tells us, between 0.6 and 0.9," he said.
"We want to bring R down further than it is today and that matters so that the NHS has sufficient capacity, so that when we do start to ease the lockdown, there's some space, some room, for manoeuvre."
The government's approach was a "cautious easing over time" so that such headroom for the NHS could be kept up, Mr Jenrick added.
When pressed for what figure the R would have to reach before the lockdown could be eased, the minister said he could not give one.
Mr Jenrick pointed out that the R could vary in different areas where transmission rates and methods of coronavirus were different.
:: Listen to the All Out Politics podcast on , , ,
He said that people should be "smart enough" to realise that guidelines should continue to be obeyed.
"We're moving into a new phase now and I think people are smart enough to be able to see that there's going to be a more nuanced message in the future," Mr Jenrick said.