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The real #testing story is Pillar 2 testing capacity appears to have been reached (i.e "on-line testing booking was periodically taken off line to 'throttle demand'") way back in late August - this by the DPH of Blackburn and Darwen https://www.themj.co.uk/We-must-rapidly-improve-Test-and-Trace/218580. Journalists: DMs open
It is not easy to see that testing capacity has been reached on the data dashboard. Here's what I see today at https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/testing for Pillar 1 and 2 - so what's the problem? Lots of apparent headroom between demand and supply
To see what has (and is) going wrong, you have to look at the data download in the top right corner. You can extract a spreadsheet. I have only added one column - the percentage of Pillar 2 used each day
And there we have it, 23 August - Pillar 2 capacity was exceeded in England. Exactly 3 weeks ago. And it still hasn't been fixed
As I say, this is consistent with this first hand account from the Director of Public Health in Blackburn with Darwen https://twitter.com/BWDDPH/status/1304854552076746757
For more analysis, follow me on Twitter or http://www.duncanrobertson.com - happy to answer questions from journalists on DMs
Here are the latest Pillar 2 capacity and tests. The capacity figures haven't been published since 10 August (two days after the Head of Testing and NHS Test and Trace made her statement). My question: what is the current capacity in Pillar 2, and how is this figure calculated?
