Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Cabinet are “absolutely focused on the dangers of a wave,” Justice Minister Robert Buckland told Sky News.
Buckland insists the government have “accepted the scale of the challenge,” with testing ahead of a possible second wave of infections.
Buckland said, “Rather than us sitting back and pretending all is way, we’ve accepted the scale of the challenge.
“We’re ramping up the test centres, we have increased laboratory capacity, new labs coming on stream so we can get that quick turnaround.”
He added, “At all times, the Prime Minister and all of us were absolutely focussed on the dangers of a second wave.
“We’ve seen what’s happening in France, we’re absolutely on to this in terms of understanding through the autumn, if we’re to get the balance between getting the economy back on track and getting our children back into school then all of us now have a special responsibility to follow all those guidelines and do whatever it takes to beat this virus.”
Sky News Kay Burley challenged the Justice Secretary over the issues the government are facing with coronavirus tests.
Buckland stressed to Burley that they have “worked so hard to scale up capacity,” but he did admit that “we’re still not there.”
He said, “The laboratory capacity has been an issue, we’re working our way through that.
“We’re increasing the number of test centres – we’ve got 400 test centres, we’re getting up to 500.
“But clearly there’s still real challenges.
“I’m not trying to shy away from the scale of the challenge.”
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