Government accused of fuelling 'mistrust' with inadequate figures on coronavirus tests

Ministers were accused today of fuelling public “mistrust” in the middle of the battle against Covid-19 by publishing inadequate figures on coronavirus tests.

In a bombshell intervention, Britain’s statistics watchdog accused the Government of putting out figures which “fall well short” of expectations.

The criticism came as the official death toll from coronavirus in the UK rose towards 50,000.

The shocking figure put Britain among the countries hardest hit by the killer virus and comes amid growing questions over the Government’s handling of the epidemic.

The Government has been accused of ordering lockdown too late, blunders in providing personal protective equipment to NHS staff and care workers, failing to do enough to protect care homes and being too slow to ramp up testing — all claims it denies.

Ministers have set a series of targets for increasing testing — to 100,000 and now 200,000 — which they say have been met.

They have succeeded in hugely expanding Britain’s testing capability and setting up a new test-and-trace system at pace.

But in a letter to Health Secretary Matt Hancock, Sir David Norgrove, chairman of the UK Statistics Authority, was highly critical of the figures being issued by the Government at the No 10 daily press conference to justify that targets are being met.

“I warmly welcome of course your support for the Code of Practice for Statistics. But the testing statistics still fall well short of its expectations,” Sir David wrote. “It is not surprising that given their inadequacy, data on testing are so widely criticised and often mistrusted.”

He warned that figures being used are “still far from complete and comprehensible”, adding: “The aim seems to be to show the largest possible number of tests, even at the expense of understanding.”

Sir David highlighted several issues including:

• The headline total of tests adds together tests carried out with tests posted out. There are no data on how many of the tests posted out are in fact then successfully completed.

• Notes to the daily slides rightly say that some people may be tested more than once and it has been widely reported that swabs carried out simultaneously on a single patient are counted as multiple tests. But it is not clear from the published data how often that is the case.

• The presentation of figures gives an artificially low impression of the proportion of tests returning a positive diagnosis.

Housing minister Simon Clarke denied the Government was “playing silly games” with the data.

He told BBC Breakfast: “These figures are independently compiled, these are not produced by government ministers. They are published by Public Health England and all the health service parties who are working with us.

“Nobody here is playing silly games with data. It’s absolutely about making sure that when we do issue it, it is accurate.”

The Department for Health said that as of 9am yesterday, the number of daily tests was 128,437 but it has not published figures on the number of people being tested for more than a week or on the number of people being dealt with through the test-and-trace system.

The Office for National Statistics today said latest figures showed 44,401 deaths involving Covid-19 occurred in England and Wales up to May 22.

The latest figures from the National Records of Scotland, published last week, showed 3,779 deaths involving Covid-19 had been registered in Scotland up to May 24.

And the latest figures from the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency, also published last week, showed 716 deaths involving Covid-19 had been registered in Northern Ireland up to May 27.

A further 819 deaths occurred in hospitals in England since May 23, according to figures from NHS England, taking the total to just over 49,700.

The figures also revealed the shocking death toll in care homes, with 12,142 Covid-linked deaths in such settings in England by this date and 591 in Wales.

The full impact of Covid-19 is widely believed to be even higher, with the number of “excess deaths” since the start of the epidemic now 56,308, compared to the average over the previous five years.

Just under two thirds of the Covid-linked deaths in England and Wales happened in hospitals.

Read more

UK virus death toll jumps by 215 as Brits head to beauty spots-LATEST

Government urged to 'stop the excuses' after BAME deaths study delayed

England virus death toll 10k higher than Government figures- ONS

Lottery operator Camelot pledges £600 million to UK charities

UK house price growth slows sharply as coronavirus crisis hurts market

'Nearly half' of Britons exposed to coronavirus misinformation online