Government is lying about lack of availability of CV testing chemicals

Its very very "easy" for the guardian and Labour to "disprove" the government numbers. All you have to do is count them a different way.

But does this help or hinder?

A ventillator without an ITU bed is as useful as a chocolate teapot!

Again re ventillators. The numbers are not straightforward.

Are you only counting the ventilators that can be staffed therefore used or not?

There isnt one number. Remember that when you think numbers are contradictory

Its like hospital bed numbers. It does not refer to physical "beds". It refers to how many beds can be serviced and staffed!

At the beginning of this health crisis, I put aside my dislike of Conservative policies and began to listen to the 5 pm briefings without prejudice. I thought the PM and his advisors were sincere and being honest about plans afoot and they were doing their best for the people of this country.

Now, after reading the Guardian in depth for several weeks and listening staff who work in our hospitals, I have come to realise that the Government and the people at the top of NHS England are being economical with the truth or even lying.

I know that any Government facing this crisis would face huge problems, but my God this bunch excel in incompetence and their mismanagement is now becoming more apparent. It’s quite shameful.

It’s irrelevant what other parties say - I just want the Government to tell us the truth about the here and now and not dissemble and prevaricate. We need to be able to trust what we are told don’t we ? Just say, our testing capacity isn’t sufficient, this is what we are doing, this is how many tests we can process by such and such dates. It’s the same as with the numbers of ventilators, we have been given various numbers and stories over the last two weeks and that’s just not on. These communication issues are absolutely the responsibility of the government

Yes that is also true.

Medical labs have been reduced and centralised in recent years. Its not easy to just reinstate local micro labs that have previously been reduced/regionalised and the space filled with other equipment e.g. biochemistry robots.

A LOT has to happen between having raw materials and being able to actually use them!

Labour barking "DO MORE TESTS" doesnt help to solve any of those logistical problems

For me, the issue NOW is not finger pointing but being levelled with - we have not been given the truth about testing capacity. I just want them to say how many they can do by when and for whom.

From what I’m picking up, there are several aspects to this which contribute to the testing problem. This is just my summary of what I’ve heard. Firstly, the government adopted the herd immunity route and so testing wasn’t given priority. Once the government decided more testing was needed, it had missed the boat and other governments were ahead of us in ordering supplies. Underpinning this is our lack of testing capacity - we have 47 PHTLs and Germany has 147. No one seemed to have a list of all the other labs available - private, hospitals, universities. (Apparently hospital labs are now to be used for NHS staff testing) I think some of the others are now to be ‘requisitioned’. There also seems to be a possible issue with now wanting to centralise testing facilities - this may be slowing down the timely availability of results. Also no one seems to have thought through the need to test NHS staff once the self isolation rules came into play and the impact of their absence.
None of the above points are party political but they do point to policy failures - the long term running down over time of the PHL Service, the failure to have a data base of all testing facilities ( necessary for any pandemic of any kind) and recent policy decisions made about how we were to handle COVID here including the containment phase and the pursuit of herd immunity.

He didnt lie.

We do not have available usable supplies.

We have supplies that need to go through some processes before we can actually count them as available!

Gove didn't need to give a location. He needed to tell the truth. He lied.

Imagine if Gove said "why yes we have a big warehouse of supplies in Essex (made up location). We have people in there working through the QC.."

Would you feel safe working there? They would have to barracade it with the army!

What we REALLY dont need is a load of faulty tests giving wrong results.

Having supplies, and having those supplies available for use, are too different things.

Also there are security fears if locations of supplies get known.

So I dont think gov is lying..

I'm trying not to get into Tories Bad-Labour Good spats currently. There's too much at stake and I want to believe that our government is doing its best for the country and all its people at this awful time.
However, it's worrying to hear Gove being dishonest during press briefings. Either there is a shortage, or there isn't, the government chose not to order essentials.

Bloody labour yes we should be testing more... now are they going to offer any actual helpful suggestions re the LOGISTICS of doing so? No! Thought not!

I was told at least a week back from a friend in the industry that whilst we do have supplies there are huge problems getting those raw supplies through quality control and on to distribution.

As Daisymae said, the truth is somewhere in the middle

I find it all very strange that the government make statements which don't seem to hold water. However I expect that the truth lies in between. What worries me most is the feeling of disarray. It feels as if there is constant reaction as opposed to preventative measures. Massive lack of clarity and information. All they repeat is stay at home to save lives etc.