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Hello and welcome to More or Less, with me Tim Halfard. We're the show that uses

numbers to explore and explain the world around us. This week just how dangerous is Covid-19?

Is it true that being a beast makes it ten times more dangerous and how are children finding

new ways to break their arms during lockdown? But first there was one number that the health

secretary, Matt Hancock, hasn't been able to stop repeating.

I am now setting the goal of 100,000 tests per day by the end of this month. I set a goal

of 100,000 tests a day. We are on track to the 100,000 target. We're broadly where we expected

to be. In case you didn't catch it, Matt Hancock was promising that the UK would carry out

100,000 coronavirus tests every day by the end of April. That deadline was last Thursday.

I can announce that we have met our goal. The number of tests yesterday, on the last day of April,

was 122,347. Q the plaudits, Tom Watson, former deputy leader of the Labour Party, took to Twitter.

Fair play, great leadership. So did George Osborne, former Chancellor of the Exchequer, although

he couldn't resist a swipe at the doubters. Let's imagine the howls of outcry and the calls

for resignation if my friend, at Matt Hancock, hadn't hit the 100,000 tests target.

And now listen to the Sullen silence as he succeeds. We'll done that.

Let's just take in a spot of that Sullen silence.

Very restful. But did he really succeed? Kate Lamble, my splendid producer, is here with me,

hello Kate. Hi Tom. He didn't actually do it, did he? No, no he didn't. When a government

promises to carry out 100,000 coronavirus tests a day, you sort of expect them to actually do

100,000 tests in a day. But that's not what happened here. You see, previously, the only test which

were counted among the daily figures were those which have been carried out and had a result from

...