UK lawmakers say testing lapses increased nursing home toll

An influential group of British lawmakers on Tuesday accused Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government of failing to conduct eugh tests for new coronavirus, saying lapse helped COVID-19 cut a dely swath through U.K. nursing homes.

As official statistics revealed more than 11,000 coronavirus deaths in British nursing homes, House of Commons’ Science and Techlogy Committee said “testing capacity has been inequate for most of pandemic so far.”

In a letter to prime minister, committee chairman Greg Clark said Britain’s limited testing capacity “drove strategy, rar than strategy driving capacity.”

U.K. authorities initially sought to trace and test everyone who h been in contact with people infected with coronavirus. But y abandoned that strategy in mid-March as number of infections overwhelmed country’s testing resources.

Johnson’s Conservative government has faced growing criticism as Britain suffers one of world’s worst coronavirus death tolls. government’s official tally of deaths among people who tested positive for virus stands at 34,796, second only to U.S. When suspected as well as confirmed cases are ded, toll is well over 40,000.

More than 11,000 of those deaths occurred in nursing homes in England and Wales, according to figures compiled by Office for National Statistics.

Clark, a lawmaker from governing Conservative Party, said “pivotal” decision in March to stop testing for coronavirus outside of hospitals meant that nursing home residents and staff weren't tested “at a time when spre of virus was at its most rampant.”

country’s testing capacity has w been scaled up to more than 100,000 tests a day, and government plans to reintroduce a “test, track and trace” policy as part of plans to control virus and ease a nationwide lockdown that was imposed March 23.

But science committee also said that “it is t clear that lessons of delays to testing have been learned.” It called for authorities to publish evidence that led to decision to abandon community testing in March.

lawmakers said that failure of Public Health England, body responsible for testing, “to publish evidence on which its testing policy was based is unacceptable for a decision that may have h such significant consequences.”

Figures released Tuesday also revealed

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