Hancock DID NOT hit testing target: BBC and Herald fall for UK Government’s deception


BBC UK and the Herald yesterday were happy to accept the UK Government’s claim to have surpassed the covid-19 testing target, few thought they would achieve, a few days earlier. Did none think to investigate the veracity of their claim? The Herald just loved it because they could then use it as a stick to beat the Scottish Government with.

The Health Service Journal’s investigative reporters, clearly of a different standard, were not so easily fooled. Yesterday they wrote:

Revealed: How government changed the rules to hit 100,000 tests target

The government has changed the way it is counting the number of covid-19 tests carried out in a bid to hit its target of 100,000 tests per day by the end of April, HSJ can reveal. Previously, a test would be counted once the sample had been processed in laboratories. But this definition has been changed in the last few days, a senior source told HSJ.

The Department of Health and Social Care is now including tests that have been posted or delivered to people’s homes in its figures. This means tests which are sent to people are counted before the recipient has provided and returned their sample to a laboratory. Speaking at today’s press conference, health secretary Matt Hancock said the government had reached its target yesterday after carrying out more than 122,000 tests. 

HSJ understands that up to 50,000 of those tests include the dispatch of tests sent to individuals at home. HSJ understands the number of home test kits that have been returned by Amazon this week is about one one third of the number posted.

https://www.hsj.co.uk/story.aspx?storyCode=7027544

Come on Scottish reporters! National?

Wait! Reporting Scotland caught me off guard by being uncritical, even praising, of the SG achieving its testing target. Connection?

Wait! Daily Express sticking with it:

10 thoughts on “Hancock DID NOT hit testing target: BBC and Herald fall for UK Government’s deception”

  1. Department of health still has the video on its Twitter page alluding to 100000 tests in a day.
    Sheer propaganda!

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  4. watch out for them double counting … the test that has been posted plus the same test being processed by the lab

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  5. Hancock is right , the eleventh hour magical 100000 figure is incredible .,Achieved by tantric tallying ,it’s an astonishing metrical elevation meriting immediate membership of the Magic Circle .

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  6. I may be wrong but did I not hear Hancock include the four countries in his counting,I always thought he meant the 100,+ was meant for only England.Maybe someone could get to listen to the report to prove me wrong.

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  7. 100,000. The war is over. War is Peace.

    It’s that S&M thing again. ‘Oooo harder, harder’.
    A majority of English being willingly distracted from reality again.
    They realised they could drag a triumph from the jaws of disaster and the media fell for it, loved it.
    Jons-un promised 200,000 a day or was it millions?
    War is Peace.

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