People have been scrambling all around for Covid tests...but we have 120,000 of them just now sitting in our freezer doing Nothing

The scientist leading NHS lab staff in the fight against coronavirus has been forced to put 120,000 testing kits on ice.

- John Ferguson

Allan Wilson, president of the Institute of Biomedical Science (IBMS), put the devices in a freezer at the start of the pandemic while awaiting Scottish Government instruction.

He praised quick-thinking technicians for ordering the chemicals and equipment after monitoring how the killer bug ripped through Europe before hitting the UK.

The Scottish Government yesterday launched a testing programme which will see all key workers – including supermarket and energy firm employees and their families – being swabbed for the virus.

But Wilson warned a blueprint is desperately needed for a regime that includes the entire country.

The Scottish Government yesterday announced 1231 people had died in hospital from coronavirus – an increase of 47 from Friday.

It was also confirmed that 10,051 had tested positive for Covid-19–an increase of 354 from the previous day.

Across the UK, it was revealed that 20,319 hospital patients had died from the illness out of 148,377 confirmed cases.

Holyrood and Westminster administrations have been criticised for falling behind other nations, including Germany and South Korea, where extensive screening programmes have limited deaths and economic disruption.

Wilson, who represents NHS lab staff across Britain, said: “The Scottish Government needs to devise a broad strategy. We have this initial capacity of 120,000 and that’s not being used as much as it could be.

“Capacity exceeds demand and the current strategy is only to test symptomatic key workers, their families and symptomatic patients – it is not a huge amount of people. But the issue is moving that on to a society-wide testing regime.”