CORONAVIRUS

Health chiefs admit rationing of coronavirus tests

Baroness Harding of Winscombe, who runs NHS Test and Trace, said that demand had increased as testing became “part of our everyday lives”
Baroness Harding of Winscombe, who runs NHS Test and Trace, said that demand had increased as testing became “part of our everyday lives”
ANDREW PARSONS/PA

Coronavirus tests are being rationed in parts of the country because there is not enough capacity, health chiefs have admitted.

Schools have been told not to send pupils with sore throats for tests to preserve lab capacity as MPs complained that testing slots had “completely evaporated” in some areas.

People in areas with low levels of the virus will be told to keep checking for free appointments within 75 miles after officials accepted that it was wrong to ask them to drive hundreds of miles to testing centres with capacity.

Government sources insisted that rationing was only happening at the margins as they concentrated tests on infection hotspots. They argued that Britain was already testing roughly twice as many people per head as Germany