Many of the COVID-19 tests the UK sent to the US for analysis were invalid, the Telegraph reports.
Last month, it reported that the UK sent about 50,000 samples to the US for COVID-19 testing following a technical issue at one of the UK labs. This decision to send samples abroad, it noted, came as the UK struggled to meet its goal of conducting 100,000 COVID-19 tests a day.
As the Guardian now reports, more tests — 17,000 more — were sent to the US than previously known, and in all about 29,500 of them came back void. That voiding appears to stem from differences in equipment standards between the UK and US, it notes, adding that because of this, tens of thousands of people needed to be re-tested.
"Unfortunately these tests from the US returned a higher void rate than expected," a spokesperson for Prime Minister Boris Johnson tells Reuters. "Everyone affected was offered a new test immediately. And the lab in the US is not being used for further ... capacity."