Germany’s virus response shines unforgiving light on Britain

FT
"Even more stark is relative performance on testing. The UK and Germany entered the crisis in lock-step, working together on virus tests, some of the first developed in the world. But Germany’s labs ran at more than five-times the NHS rate, completing 918,460 tests versus Britain’s 163,194. Only on Thursday did Matt Hancock, the health secretary, declare Britain would “ramp up” efforts by harnessing private facilities — just as the global supply of chemicals and testing equipment was being squeezed. “Germany had 100 test labs at the start, largely thanks to Roche, but we had to start from a lower base,” he said. “We are going to build a British diagnostics industry at scale.”