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Boris Johnson gave a briefing on the coronavirus on Friday, accompanied by Lady Harding, who is in charge of the NHS testing and tracking system for England.
Here are some of the claims that were made:
1. Delivery of PPE
Boris Johnson: “We have substantially increased the personal protective equipment pipeline [PPE] for the NHS and welfare that make up over 30 billion EPP items over the course of the pandemic. ”
However, government figures show that just 2.3 billion items have been delivered to health and welfare services in England, as of July 12.
This includes 1.4 billion gloves (counted individually instead of in pairs).
It’s not immediately clear where the 30 billion number comes from, but it could include future installments.
On June 26, Lord Deighton, who is leading the PPE government’s efforts, said there were 28 billion items in order.
Adding that along with what was already delivered would be just over 30 billion.
2. Try and track better and better
Dido Harding: “Every week, the NHS test and tracking improves.”
But the proportion of people reached and requested to isolate themselves in England has been declining since the plan was launched six weeks ago.
Percentage of contacts tracked
The first set of published figures was from May 28 to June 10, when 90.6% of identified contacts were tracked.
The most recent figure from July 1 to July 8 was 71.1%, barely changed from the previous week.
Sage, which reports to the government, has said that at least 80% of contacts would need to be isolated for the test and trace system to be effective.
While the overall figure is above 80%, the figures for the past three weeks have been below that level.
Another measure of success has increased somewhat. The proportion of infected people who were contacted after being referred to contact trackers was 72.6% in the first dataset from May 28 to June 10.
That figure deteriorated the following week, but has gradually improved since then and was 78.7% in the most recent set of figures.
Health officials also say the data shows that most of the positive results were achieved by the NHS Test and Trace to identify their contacts in less than 24 hours.
You can read more about contact tracking here.
3. Fans on the NHS
Boris Johnson: “We have greatly increased the number of mechanical fans available on the NHS across the UK from 9,000 before the pandemic to almost 30,000 now.”
This is correct.
There are now 29,800 mechanical fans available to the NHS, according to the Department of Health and Social Care.
On March 17, NHS England chief Sir Simon Stevens said there were 8,175 fans available, making it reasonable to assume that, including the rest of the UK, it would have been closer to 9,000.
The government had originally set a target of 30,000 fans, but then dropped to 18,000. This was because social distancing measures had reduced demand.
However, they have now almost reached that higher goal.
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4. Comparison test with Europe
Boris Johnson: “Publicly available data suggests that we are now conducting our tests more than anywhere else in Europe as a whole, and more than Germany, France, Italy and Spain per capita.”
Making international comparisons is difficult, as we have previously explained. Some countries report the number of people examined, while others report the number of tests performed.
With these limitations in mind, the Our World in Data website publishes a comparison of the number of daily tests conducted worldwide.
Based on an average daily figure for the past seven days, the UK performed 1.67 tests per 1,000 people per day, while Germany performed 0.86 tests per 1,000, Italy 0.7 and Spain 0.63 . Data for France are not available.
The only two countries in Europe that conducted the most tests per capita were Denmark (with 2.11 tests per 1,000 people) and Luxembourg (12.77 per 1,000).
In absolute terms, the UK is conducting more tests than other European countries. According to yesterday’s figures from the Department of Health and Social Assistance, there were 202,912 daily tests available in the UK, while 152,063 tests were processed.
5. Test ability
Boris Johnson: “The capacity of antigen testing has increased 100-fold since the beginning of March, from less than 2,000 tests per day to more than 200,000 tests per day now.”
In early March, the government did not release a daily test capacity figure (the number of tests that could be done on a given day), but the data released at that time shows that less than 2,000 people were tested of coronaviruses on average every day. .
On March 11, NHS England announced that testing capacity would increase from around 1,500 per day to 10,000.
Since then, the government has set numerous targets for both capacity and actual number of daily tests.
It has been criticized by the UK Statistical Authority for its handling of test data.
On July 16, more than 200,000 tests were made available with more than 150,000 processed, so the prime minister is right that the capacity increased 100-fold.
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