British MPs criticized the British government's handling of the new coronavirus pandemic on Tuesday, deploring an "inadequate" screening capacity . The government of Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson, himself cured of Covid-19 disease, is regularly accused of having been slow to take stock of the scale of the epidemic, which has killed nearly 35,000 people in the United Kingdom. United.
Despite an increase in screening capacity to 100,000 daily tests at the end of April, it has been "inadequate for most of the pandemic," writes Conservative MP Greg Clark, who chairs the science and technology committee. in the House of Commons, in a letter to Boris Johnson. “The capacity was not increased early enough or ambitiously enough. Ability has guided strategy " rather than the other way around," he says in this 19-page missive.
Read also: Coronavirus: British government prepared for Boris Johnson to die
To reach these conclusions, the parliamentary committee relies on several hearings of scientists, public health experts and government advisers, as well as on comparisons with the strategies implemented in other countries. It notes that only 1,215 tests were carried out on March 10 in the United Kingdom, barely two weeks before the establishment of containment due to the rapid spread of the virus.
On March 12, the authorities decided to no longer systematically test and to reserve the tests for the most critical cases in hospitals, then for carers on the front line. This had serious consequences for retirement homes, which were unable to access testing "when the virus was spreading the fastest," it said in the letter. In total, more than 12,500 people living in retirement homes in England and Wales died of the new coronavirus in two months, according to an official study. Subsequently, the tests were extended to key workers in late April, then to residents and employees of retirement homes.
Read also: Coronavirus: for Boris Johnson, the end of the state of grace
Health Minister Matt Hancock announced on Monday that anyone with symptoms over the age of 5 could now be tested, while the government is now targeting 200,000 tests per day by the end of May. With a view to a future deconfinement, which should be gradually implemented from the beginning of June, 21,000 people have been hired to support the future strategy of testing and tracing contaminated people, alongside a contact tracking application.