Coronavirus: Boris Johnson assertion fact-checked

Boris Johnson gave a coronavirus briefing on Friday, accompanied by Woman Harding, who’s in control of the NHS check and hint system for England.

Listed here are a number of the claims that have been made:

1. Delivering PPE

Boris Johnson: “We’ve considerably elevated the pipeline of private protecting gear [PPE] for the NHS and social care constituting over 30 billion gadgets of PPE over the course of the pandemic”.

Nevertheless, authorities figures present that solely 2.Three billion gadgets have truly been delivered to well being and social care providers in England, as much as 12 July.

This contains 1.Four billion gloves (that are counted individually versus in pairs).

It is not instantly clear the place the 30 billion quantity comes from, nevertheless it might embrace future deliveries.

On 26 June, Lord Deighton who’s main the federal government’s PPE efforts, mentioned there have been 28 billion gadgets on order.

Including that along with what has already been delivered can be simply over 30 billion.

2. Check and hint getting higher

Dido Harding: “Each week, NHS check and hint will get higher.”

However the proportion of individuals reached and requested to self-isolate in England has been falling because the scheme was launched six weeks in the past.

The primary set of figures printed have been for 28 Might to 10 June when 90.6% of recognized contacts have been traced.

The newest determine for 1 July to eight July was 71.1%, barely modified from the earlier week.

Sage, which advises the federal government, has mentioned that a minimum of 80% of contacts would want to isolate for the check and hint system to be efficient.

Whereas the general determine is above 80%, figures for the final three weeks have been beneath that stage.

One other measure of success has elevated considerably. The proportion of contaminated individuals who have been contacted after being referred to the contact tracers was 72.6% within the first set of information for 28 Might to 10 June.

That determine deteriorated the next week, however has progressively improved since then and was 78.7% in the newest set of figures.

Well being officers additionally say knowledge reveals nearly all of these testing optimistic have been reached by NHS Check and Hint to establish their contacts in lower than 24 hours.

You possibly can learn extra about contact tracing right here.

3. Ventilators within the NHS

Boris Johnson: “We’ve massively elevated the variety of mechanical ventilators obtainable within the NHS throughout the UK from 9,000 earlier than the pandemic to just about 30,000 now.”

That is right.

There at the moment are 29,800 mechanical ventilators obtainable to the NHS, based on the Division of Well being and Social Care.

On 17 March, the pinnacle of NHS England Sir Simon Stevens mentioned there have been 8,175 ventilators obtainable, so it is affordable to imagine that together with the remainder of the UK, that may have been nearer to 9,000.

The federal government had initially set a goal of 30,000 ventilators, however this was later lowered to 18,000. This was as a result of social distancing measures had lowered demand.

Nevertheless, they’ve now virtually reached that greater goal.

4. Testing comparability with Europe

Boris Johnson: “Publicly obtainable knowledge suggests we at the moment are finishing up our checks greater than wherever else in Europe in whole, and greater than Germany, France, Italy and Spain per capita.”

Making worldwide comparisons is troublesome, as we’ve got defined earlier than. Some nations report the variety of individuals examined, whereas others report the variety of checks carried out.

With these constraints in thoughts, Our World in Knowledge web site publishes a comparability of the variety of day by day checks carried out the world over.

Primarily based on a mean day by day determine during the last seven days, the UK carried out 1.67 checks per 1,000 individuals a day, whereas Germany carried out 0.86 checks per 1,000, Italy 0.7 and Spain 0.63. Knowledge for France just isn’t obtainable.

The one two nations in Europe that carried out extra checks per capita have been Denmark (with 2.11 checks per 1,000 individuals) and Luxembourg (12.77 per 1,000).

It absolute phrases, the UK is now finishing up extra checks than different European nations. In response to yesterday’s figures from the Division of Well being and Social Care, there have been 202,912 day by day checks made obtainable within the UK whereas 152,063 checks have been processed.

5. Testing capability

Boris Johnson: “Antigen check capability has elevated 100-fold because the begin of March, from fewer than 2,000 checks a day to greater than 200,000 checks a day now.”

In the beginning of March, the federal government didn’t publish a day by day testing capability determine (the variety of checks that could possibly be completed on a given day) however knowledge launched on the time reveals that just below 2,000 individuals have been examined for coronavirus on common every day.

On 11 March, NHS England introduced that testing capability can be elevated from round 1,500 a day to 10,000.

Since then, the federal government has set quite a few targets on each capability and the precise variety of day by day checks.

It has been criticised by the UK Statistics Authority for its dealing with of testing knowledge.

On 16 July greater than 200,000 checks have been made obtainable with over 150,000 processed, so the prime minister is true that capability elevated 100-fold.

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