It will be at least a week before the government announces whether it has met Boris Johnson’s promise for virtually all coronavirus tests in England to be completed within 24 hours amid wider concern at slow dissemination of data connected to the outbreak.
Downing Street also revealed that while local councils were last week given access to postcode-level infection statistics, this dataset would not be released publicly, making it harder for people to monitor the spread of Covid-19 where they live.
The 24-hour target is seen as key to ensuring the government’s test-and-trace system can extinguish local outbreaks, as the quicker people know they are infected the more rapidly those with whom they have been in close contact can be told to isolate.
At prime minister’s questions on 3 June, in response to a question from former health secretary Jeremy Hunt, Johnson said that by the end of the month all tests would be completed within 24 hours, aside from posted tests and “insuperable problems like that”.
Asked on Wednesday whether the target had been met, Johnson’s spokesman said he did not yet know. He said: “The data on that will be published tomorrow as part of weekly test and trace statistics. It details the number of tests completed within 24 hours. We will then publish weekly data on this in the future.”
However, the first set of data will cover the week of 18-24 June, meaning it will be another week before the figures for the end of the month are issued.
The government is also still unable to say how many people are being tested daily for coronavirus – it only publishes the figures for the number of tests, which does not account for people being tested more than once – or when Covid-19 antibody tests, which detect whether someone might have had the virus, will be rolled out more generally. Currently these are mainly reserved for NHS and care staff.
On the wider issue of test data, the mayor and council in Leicester have complained about a lack of detailed information in the run-up to the government’s decision to impose the first localised lockdown on the city due to high infection rates.
The matter has been complicated as the government only publicly released test data for so-called pillar-one tests – those done in NHS hospitals or Public Health England labs – and not for pillar-two ones. The latter are the swab tests carried out in drive-in centres and elsewhere, and are now picking up more new cases than pillar-one tests.
Johnson’s spokesman said the wider testing data, down to a postcode level of detail, was shared with local authorities last week, although he was unable to say which day.
Asked why the public could not access this data. he said: “Information such as postcodes is provided on a secure basis, for reasons I think that everyone would understand.
“It’s been shared with local authorities, and I know that the Department for Health and Social Care and [the head of the test-and-trace programme] Dido Harding are looking at what information could be made publicly available as well.”
Asked whether it might not be in the public interest for people to know themselves about local infection rates, he said: “Local authorities know, and they are well-placed to take any necessary action.”
A consolidation of pillar-one and pillar-two testing by the Guardian has shown that Bradford, Barnsley and Rochdale have the highest levels of new Covid-19 infections after Leicester, ahead of this weekend’s easing of lockdown rules.
Asked to comment on which places were potentially at risk, the spokesman said: “I don’t think it’s helpful for me to speculate like that.”
Asked whether the prime minister would advise people to go to newly reopened pubs and restaurants on Saturday, the spokesman said that as long as businesses maintained social distancing and other measures, this should be safe. He added: “People will make their own decisions.”