Alison Thewliss
Main Page: Alison Thewliss (Scottish National Party - Glasgow Central)Department Debates - View all Alison Thewliss's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(4 years, 2 months ago)
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Matt Hancock
I like my right hon. Friend very much and wish that that were true. The reason why the Office for National Statistics does the surveillance testing is to ensure that we are constantly looking, on a national representative sample, at what the case rate is, as well as, of course, using the tests, and as we increase the testing numbers, we will inevitably find more of the cases that are there. The ONS survey published on Friday shows a rise in the numbers commensurate with the rise in the numbers of tests that have come back positive, and that does take into account the point about false positives, which is an important one.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
Work is under way to set up a walk-through testing centre at Glasgow Caledonian University in my constituency, but with universities now returning, what additional capacity is being put in place to deal with what could be an additional surge of tests that need to be processed?
Matt Hancock
We are working with universities to try to ensure that testing is available as appropriate. Of course, that has to follow the wider prioritisation, but it is very important that universities right across the UK are ready for the return of students, including with testing, where that is appropriate, and we are working on that right now.