It’s April Fools’ Day, but this isn’t a joke. . .

Traces of the COVID-19 coronavirus were discovered on components of COVID-19 tests that were sent to the U.K., making the useless:

Traces of #Covid19 were detected in parts of the coronavirus testing kits due for delivery in the coming days https://t.co/bNcr67upzi — The Telegraph (@Telegraph) March 31, 2020

The components, which were from unnamed overseas countries, were sent to the U.K. by a company in Luxembourg:

Eurofins, which is based in Luxembourg, admitted there had been “an issue” but said other private providers had suffered the same problem. It’s unclear how the components were contaminated and senior health sources told the newspaper that the delay wouldn’t significantly impact the UK’s testing programme.

Officials say it won’t “significantly impact the UK’s testing programme.” But we’ll see about that:

Britain’s attempt to ramp up mass coronavirus testing has been dealt a blow after key components ordered from overseas were discovered to be contaminated with coronavirus. The EU can’t even send us testing kits without them being contaminated.. https://t.co/F1n6TzvZyh — Richard James (@skisidjames) March 31, 2020

Critics were already angry at the number of tests being done per day, and this was before the contaminated tests were discovered. From the Evening Standard:

Professor Anthony Costello, who now works at University College London, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the UK isn’t using its resources as efficiently as countries like Germany – which is doing 70,000 tests per day. He said: “We have 44 molecular virology labs in the UK. If they were doing 400 tests a day we would be up to Germany levels of testing and that is perfectly feasible…

Real life is going to put The Onion and The Babylon Bee out of business:

Thoughts and prayers for the world’s satirists, who presumably have nothing to do these days#NotTheOnion https://t.co/DPvAaAPpA4 — Ben Coates (@bencoates1) April 1, 2020

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