Radio host tears into 'ludicrous' Covid pass loophole for MPs
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Senior Whitehall sources have reportedly warned of a lack of vital data due to this testing crisis. Earlier this week, the Government portal for booking Covid tests stated that there are “no rapid lateral flow tests available to order today for home delivery”.
However, Number 10 has denied a supply crisis, saying that it’s not a shortage of physical tests, but rather a shortage of delivery slots to post them out.
The UK Health Security Agency said this morning that “due to exceptionally high demand, ordering lateral flow tests on gov.uk has been temporarily suspended to fulfil existing orders”.
They added: “Everyone who needs a lateral flow test can collect test kits – either at their local pharmacy, some community sites and some schools and colleges.”
Senior Whitehall sources warned that the disruption to the supply of PCR tests and rapid lateral flow devices would leave decision-makers lacking vital data and lead to them “flying blind”.
Testing has been a key part of the Government’s COVID-19 strategy as fully vaccinated people in England who are close contacts of Covid cases are told to take daily lateral flow tests for seven days from Tuesday.
It is currently unclear how bad the spread of Omicron is in the UK after the UK’s Health Security Agency estimated that 200,000 people were infected on Monday.
Professor Chris Whitty warned ministers “it remained too early to say how severe the omicron variant was but that we can expect a significant increase in hospitalisations as cases increase”.
Earlier, Dr Susan Hopkins, chief medical adviser at UKHSA, told a parliamentary select committee that the number of daily omicron infections can reach one million by the end of the month.
On Monday, the Government conducted a total of 409,602 PCR tests, with a capacity of 830,552.
If the UK does reach one million daily infections by the end of the month, it’s unlikely the country’s testing system will be able to detect all the cases.
Speaking to the Independent, one senior government official said: Ministers want more data, but there are limits, and those limits have been further stretched by supply disruptions.
“There’s a clear risk of [the government] flying blind. The sheer pace of infections and the inability to test at the same rate as demand are making it incredibly hard to get a clear picture here.”
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Dr Hopkins also told the Science and Technology Committee that “some level” of restrictions will likely be needed until February.
Issues in collecting data could have also additional knock-on effects that determine when hospitalisations will start to ramp up, the Government source added: “There’s also pace to consider, as data-gathering, in order to have a clear point of NHS collapse, may take longer than we can afford to wait.”
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