BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts

Hello and welcome to More or Less, the show that sends suspect statistics packing, whether

they're big fat lies or mistakes that have been made in a very specific and limited way.

I'm Tim Halford.

This week, amid reports of problems with coronavirus testing, we examine the data.

Just how moonshotty is the government's Operation Moonshot Plan for mass testing?

Has the UK been taking more refugees from outside the EU than any EU country?

And turning up the volume on your eyelashes?

So first, in recent days, there have been stories in the news about the coronavirus testing

system in England falling over and a huge backlog of tests across the UK, with people being

offered tests hundreds of miles away or not being able to get them at all.

The laid results in Wales and Scotland have been put down to problems with laboratory

capacity, which is coordinated at a UK level.

Here on More or Less, we're all about the numbers, so we've been looking into what

the numbers do and don't show about the reports of chaos in coronavirus testing.

Sirius, producer Simon, maybe this is here.

Hello, Simon.

Hello.

So let's go through the process of getting a test.

The first question is, can you get one?

Well, the Department of Health and Social Care say, our capacity is the highest it has

ever been.

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