Piers Morgan furiously clashes with Health Minister over ‘spectacular failure’ of testing

Piers Morgan has described the Government’s current level of coronavirus testing as a ‘spectacular failure’.
Piers Morgan (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for BAFTA LA)Piers Morgan (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for BAFTA LA)
Piers Morgan (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for BAFTA LA)

On Tuesday, just 18,206 coronavirus tests were carried out, the lowest number of tests in 12 days.

Meanwhile, testing capacity increased to 39,250.

Care Minister Helen Whately was grilled by Mr Morgan on Good Morning Britain today.

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He said: “We’re actually testing less people yesterday than we were testing 12 days ago, which I would argue is a spectacular failure.

“What would you call it?”

Ms Whately told Mr Morgan she would answer his questions ‘if you let me finish speaking’ and she was trying to ‘give him the context’ of efforts to ramp up the number of tests.

She also said that current figures on the deaths of people in care homes could be ‘misleading’ as they ‘include some who have died in hospitals, so it is an inaccurate figure’.

She said the way the data is being collected has been changed so that new figures could be published next week.

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Mr Morgan took issue with her answers regarding the number of people who have died in care homes and said those who died in hospital of the same illness are being given more respect.

She described his comment as ‘an incredibly unreasonable accusation’.

According to Government figures, the UK recorded another 823 coronavirus hospital deaths on Tuesday.

This means a total of 17,337 people have died in UK hospitals after testing positive for Covid-19.