Coronavirus: Daily tests fall below 70,000 as Boris Johnson sets 200,000 target

Figures released as UK death toll from illness tops 30,000

Tests for coronavirus have plunged below 70,000 - down more than 50,000 on the daily total of 122,000 claimed by the government last week.

The announcement came as total UK deaths in the course of the pandemic topped 30,000, confirming Britain’s death toll as the second worst in the world behind the US.

Amid continuing accusations that health secretary Matt Hancock had manipulated figures to meet his target for 100,000 daily tests by Thursday’s deadline, prime minister Boris Johnson dramatically announced a fresh target of 200,000 by the end of May.

But his pledge was watered down within hours, as Downing Street revealed it related only to testing capacity and not to the number of tests actually carried out.

Housing secretary Robert Jenrick later announced that the government’s tally of tests - including those conducted in NHS and Public Health England labs, drive-through centres as well as home-testing kits sent out in the post - totalled 69,463 in the 24 hours to 9am on Wednesday.

The figure was down from 84,806 in Tuesday and 122,347 claimed by Mr Hancock last Thursday - which included more than 40,000 which had been sent out but not necessarily used.

Mr Johnson told the House of Commons that maintaining high levels of testing was a vital part of the government’s exit strategy for moving the UK out of lockdown, which he is due to outline on Sunday.

“The value of the test, tracking and tracing operation that we are setting up now is that, as we come out of the epidemic, and as we get the new cases down, we will have a team that is genuinely able to track and trace hundreds of thousands of people across the country, and thereby drive down the epidemic,” Mr Johnson told MPs.

He admitted that testing had been suspended earlier in the outbreak because “the transmission from individuals within the UK exceeded our capacity”.

And he came under fire from Labour leader Keir Starmer, who said the UK had been “slow into lockdown, slow on testing, slow on tracing and slow on the supply of protective equipment”.

Responding to the latest figures, shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said: “Far from delivering on the promise of 100,000 completed tests a day, testing numbers have now fallen three days in a row.

“A test, trace and isolate strategy is crucial to tackling this virus.

“Ministers needs to explain why the number of tests being completed daily is falling rather than rising.”