Can the UK do 100,000 Corona tests a day?

  

 The UK Government has promised it will dramatically increase corona virus testing to 100,000 a day by the end of the month.

   It has been criticised for not testing more people already, as countries like Germany have managed to reach 50,000 tests a day.

Daily corona virus testing passed 10,000 people a day across the UK on Thursday 2 April - so how can capacity be increased tenfold in just four weeks?

What is stopping the UK testing more people?

   You need the laboratory space as well as enough, and the right kind of, machines.

You need the right reagents - highly specific substances used to extract the virus's genetic material and to make it easier to study.

   You need staff to take the swabs from patients' noses or throats, and staff in labs to process the tests.

And you need the logistics in place to get samples from patients to labs.We're talking about diagnostic tests to find out if you have the virus here - ones that involve a nose or throat swab that has to be sent off to a lab.

   Antibody tests use blood to look for evidence you've already had the virus but these are unlikely to be available on a large enough scale in time to be part of the 100000 target.