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Empty coronavirus test centres are eerie symbols of an unbelievable failure to find, isolate and treat those with the potentially fatal virus to stop it spreading.

Using just 52% of the 36,000 available tests in a recent 24-hour period is a terrible waste.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock’s aim to reach 100,000 tests in less than a couple of weeks now looks unachievable without a massive push.

Opening centres miles from hospitals was another mistake. Taking mobile units near to NHS sites would have been far more sensible.

Tests, initially limited to NHS staff then extended to other key workers, should be expanded without delay.

Germany and South Korea have had much lower death rates than Britain, thanks, in part, to testing, testing, testing.

This must be our way forward. Knowing who is and isn’t infected is vital to easing, then ending, the lockdown.

Hold an inquiry

TUC leader Frances O’Grady is right. We need a public inquiry into the shortages of personal protective equipment for NHS workers, carers and others on the front line in the fight against the coronavirus.

Sending them into battle against a killer virus without body armour is risking, and sometimes costing, their lives.

After shouting they had a plan and parroting statistics nobody believed in, Tory ministers should hang their heads in shame over what has become a national scandal.

Covid-19 has posed unprecedented challenges but our slow, incompetent Government should have done much better.

We need to learn lessons from this pandemic because, tragically, sometime in the future there will be a next time.

Not post haste

Better late than never for the two women who, after 41 years, finally received a reply from Holland to a message in a bottle sent out to sea.

Lucky they weren’t sending out an SOS.