Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many people were tested for covid-19 from 20 May to 31 May 2020 inclusive.
The ‘people tested’ measure was initially used to count people who had not been previously received a test, deliberately excluding subsequent instances an individual would have been tested if they had been tested once or more previously. It no longer usefully reflects the volume of tests carried out as, for example, a healthcare worker receiving their second, third or fourth test since the start of the pandemic would not be counted as they have been tested once before. Therefore, the people tested figure will be published on a weekly, rather than daily, basis within the NHS Test and Trace statistics at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/nhs-test-and-trace-statistics-england-weekly-reports