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Global coronavirus live blog

11.55am BST
Sir Keir Starmer’s spokesman has just issued this statement.
This morning Keir Starmer was advised to self isolate after a member of his household showed possible symptoms of the coronavirus. The member of his household has now had a test. In line with NHS guidelines, Keir will self-isolate while awaiting the results of the test and further advice from medical professionals.
11.39am BST
Readers to continue to get in touch to say that they cannot book a coronavirus test. Here is just one comment from below the line today.
@Andrew I don’t think the state of the testing system is being reported - I tried to get one at 4am: no tests. Tried every half an hour until 8am when it appeared that appointments were available, but the site crashed so I couldn’t select a test centre. Tried again at 9am and no tests available. This is a disaster.
To sum up, in March they delayed implementing Covid control measures by a week (allowing a racing event to go ahead) & didn’t have enough testsIn September they delayed implementing Covid control measures by a week (allowing a racing event to go ahead) & don’t have enough tests
I am being inundated with messages from people with what they fear may be #Covid_19 symptoms who cannot work because they can’t get a test. So what is going on? It is not all about the growing incidence of the virus. Though that is part of it. Here is what a source from...
NHS Test and Trace tells me: “demand for testing has gone through the roof. It’s almost like the loo roll phenomenon early on the year. We are doing more testing per head of population than other European countries but at current demand...
“even once we have doubled that testing capacity (which we will do by end Oct) we will still have the problem you describe. HMG has made a fundamental choice to test all care home staff once a week which uses a huge amount of our testing capacity...
“but I think that’s right as that’s where the biggest risk is. We see a lot of people coming forward for testing who don’t have symptoms and just like every other bit of the NHS if we don’t manage that demand there is a problem”. Or to put it another way, if you want a test...
you will have to be patient. But as I said last week, this shortage of tests may lead schools and other institutions to shut temporarily if too many teachers and other staff are off work not really knowing if they are properly ill or not. This testing shortage is a big problem.
PS I understand that 100,000 tests are being delivered to social care settings every day. So that is two-fifths of all testing capacity being absorbed to protect the elderly and vulnerable. Which most people would say makes sense. But it means that with infections...
rising, there may well be inadequate capacity for the rest of the population for weeks and months, unless @BorisJohnson’s derided “moonshot” of exponential expansion based on new technologies actually works. Continue reading...