Home tests for coronavirus should be available to NHS staff throughout the UK “very soon”, according to the government’s testing co-ordinate.
Professor John Newton acknowledged that health and care workers have struggled to access testing sites. The government said that a “lack of demand”, rather than capacity was the deciding factor behind the slow growth in testing numbers.
But the British Medical Association (BMA), the Royal College of Nurses (RCN) ans UNISON have challenged this.
On the positive side of the world crisis is the story of the tiny premature baby who fought off coronavirus.
Mother of the baby, Tracy Maguire, remembered the moment when she saw doctors insert a swab into her three-week-old baby’s nose to test for Covid-19.
The new mother recalled the harrowing moment, saying: “It was one of the worsed things that I have ever seen.
“It was the first time I had seen my baby cry tears”.
She continued: “I held her and then I was crying. We were just trying to get each other through this trying, emotional situation”.
Born premature at just 2id 5oz (1.5kg), baby Peylon was diagnosed with coronavirus at just three weeks old.
Sir Simon McDonald, a Foreign Office civil servant, said that he was wrong to claim that the UK took a 2political decision” not to join an EU scheme to source medical equipment after telling MPs that ministers were briefed on “what was on offer” but said “no”.
He, however, retracted his comment saying he had “wrongly told MPs” that ministers had been briefed on the scheme.
McDonald later said that the UK did not receive an invitation to join the scheme because of, it was said, “communication problems”.
