Boris Johnson made an extraordinary plea for research labs to lend the government coronavirus testing kit as recently as Sunday, it was claimed today. The desperate appeal from the PM will fuel a growing backlash over the speed of efforts to ramp up the UK's testing capacity. However, the UK shelved efforts to test everyone with symptoms earlier this month, when the response moved into a 'delay' phase. An accompanying letter from Mr Johnson said 'there are no machines available to buy' and asked the institutes to cooperate 'in the national interest.' The PM's spokesman said: 'it is no secret we are rapidly scaling our efforts to develop testing capacity.'

Source: Daily Mail March 24, 2020 13:44 UTC