Britain’s lack of testing is one of the worst failures of this crisis

Editorial: An explanation is the least we deserve – and yet, after weeks of press conferences, we still haven’t got one

Matt Hancock addresses the media in Downing Street this month (AFP)

In science as in politics, the first step to understanding a mistake is to acknowledge it. Scientists, though not universally, are often better at doing this than politicians. Hence the admission by Sir Patrick Vallance, chief scientific adviser to the government, that early British success in testing during the coronavirus pandemic was not “scaled up” rapidly enough at a critical moment in the spread of Covid-19.

It follows the admission last week from his colleague Chris Whitty that Germany “got ahead” in testing people for the disease. This was in the period when the advice of the World Health Organisation to “test, test, test” was dismissed by Mr Whitty’s deputy, Jenny Harries, because Britain already had a well-developed public health system.

The official tone in testing is different now, if only because we are at a different stage of the pandemic. Not only is a test for coronavirus desperately needed, but also one for those who have already contracted it and survived. So the government is now aiming for 100,000 tests of various kinds every day by the end of this month. Progress so far has been disappointing.

The second stage in understanding a mistake, once admitted, is to discover why it occurred. The question is how other nations in a roughly equal position, such as South Korea and Germany, were able to scale up their testing, with apparently life-saving results. What did they do that the UK did not? Despite weeks of press conferences, we have no answer.

There is also the question about whether testing was downgraded when the move was made from the “contain” phase of the NHS action plan to “delay”. Was a conscious decision made in the first weeks of March that the numbers involved had grown so large that testing and tracing had become impractical? Would testing have continued if more kits were available? And was it right to give patients priority for testing ahead of NHS staff?

The lack of testing remains one of the worst failures of this crisis. There is no doubt that ministers are now straining every sinew to remedy the deficit, acquire the kits and develop a new antibody test. Their political reputations rest on a radical improvement in the situation. Too many promises have been broken; too many targets missed; too many opportunities forgone. The least the public deserves is an explanation of why.