BRITAIN has been flying thousands of coronavirus tests to the United States in a major struggle to lift the daily testing rate.
The Department of Health admitted that 50,000 test samples were sent to the US secretly last week, as problems started to arise in UK labs. The samples were taken in chartered flights from Stansted airport, and the Government claim that “all results will be returned to patients as quickly as possible”.
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The Government confessed on Thursday that there had been a problem in a lab in Northern Ireland, but had previously made no reference to the shipping tens of thousands of tests.
Questions have started to arise as to why the Government did not disclose the samples had been airlifted to the US before.
Many Britons are still waiting for their results, leaving them in turmoil. The UK has failed to hit the hundred thousand a day target for testing for each of the past seven days, and only hit the 100,000 a day target last month after mailing 40,000 testing kits to people at home.
A Department of Health source said: “We were able to send approximately 50,000 test samples to a US laboratory earlier this week.
“Validation of the results will be completed in the UK, and all results will be returned to patients as quickly as possible.”
The Telegraph reported that the samples are being processed at a university laboratory in a southern state of America.
There have been several reports of long delays in getting results back to Britons who have been tested.
However, it is not known if this is because tests are being sent to the US.
The department source added: “Delays in the system this week arose as a result of operational issues in our lab network.
“We have worked to resolve these issues and capacity is rapidly being restored.
“It is not surprising when a system is brand new that there will be some teething problems in the first weeks of operation.
“It is important not to draw too many conclusions from a few days worth of data.
“Over one million people have now been tested in the UK and the vast majority report no issues with the process.”
Daily testing figures have recently slumped to under 70,000 a day, which is well below the 100,000 daily target set by Health Secretary Matt Hancock.
Talking at the daily briefing on Saturday Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, the deputy chief medical officer for England said: “I had expected there to be fluctuations in the number of daily coronavirus tests being carried out.
“We are now really at a high plateau, in the region of 100,000 tests per day.
“There is some fluctuation, and quite frankly I expect there to be some fluctuation on a day-to-day basis.
“I don’t think we can read too much into day-to-day variations, but the macro-picture is this is now at a much, much higher level than it ever was at the beginning of this crisis.”
The Government issued a statement saying there had been a problem with a machine at a commercial laboratory run by private firm Randox in Northern Ireland, which had now been rectified.
Randox said its staff were “working diligently to process all tests in a timely manner”.
Last week Boris Johnson set a 200,000 daily coronavirus testing target and promised to “go even higher” to contain the disease.
One testing source claimed the US university was being used to manage “surge capacity” in the UK as testing is ramped up.
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