Health Minister ‘content’ with testing capacity – with just 3,000 tests a day being carried out in Wales

Wrexham.com for people living in or visiting the Wrexham area

This article is old - Published: Tuesday, May 26th, 2020

Just over 3,000 coronavirus tests are being carried out across Wales each day, despite the capacity to undertake over 5,000.

Across Wales since the coronavirus pandemic began 62,853 people have been tested, with 13,415 testing positive and 49,438 negative cases to date.

In the last 24 hours 3,030 tests have been carried out, resulting in 141 new confirmed cases. Full data can be found here.

Six weeks ago – when testing capacity was lower but still not being reached each day – Wrexham.com questioned the situation and was told by Health Minister Vaughan Gething that he would “much rather be in a position where referrals are coming in and we have a modest backlog to work through rather than not having enough referrals to come.”

With full capacity still not being reached daily, at today’s briefing we asked Mr Gething: “Six weeks ago and you said you’d prefer a modest backlog to work through rather than not have enough referrals coming in.”

“The latest data said there has been 3,000 tests taking place. How many tests a day can take place and if there is still a deficit, why hasn’t it been sorted out yet?”

Mr Gething said he is “content” with the current capacity levels of around 5,700 tests (referred to as sampling and lab capacity combined) and expects to announce a further increase next week.

He said: “Part of the reason we are seeing an increase is because we are going out and testing more significantly across care homes. We’ve got a rolling program, I think in the next two to three weeks, we should have all care homes tested.

“It’s actually partly about the demand that’s coming into the system as well, because our critical workers are able to be tested and when I’ve asked employers in those areas in the last few weeks, when they’ve got access, they’ve all broadly been content. They’ve got rapid access to testing for their staff when they need it.

“Actually the ramping up of the testing in care homes is allowing us to test, and have the ability to test in much larger numbers before we go into test, trace and protect, which will be really important to continue to test a potentially at an even larger level.

“Now that we’re also taking part in the UK program we have some robustness in terms of also alternative ways for people to get their tests as well.

“So I’m expecting we’ll see more people looking for tests as we move further out of lockdown and as we do go through a wider spread of test, trace and protect.

“So I’m content with the capacity as is now. Next week I hope to give give you and the public a wider update on a further increase in testing capacity.”

You can view the full daily briefing, along with the Q&A session on the below video: