Matt Hancock stands by his claim that the UK was "well-equipped" for coronavirus pandemic | LBC

The Health Secretary has told LBC he stands by his claim that the UK was "well-prepared and well-equipped" for the coronavirus pandemic.

In January, Matt Hancock had said in the House of Commons that the UK was "well-prepared and well-equipped to tackle any contagion" and that we "had a world-leading test for Covid-19".

But yesterday, he admitted the government had had difficulties getting enough tests for coronavirus.

Nick asked him: "Had you been misled, or were you lying?"

But Mr Hancock insisted: "No, no, that is totally accurate.

"Our goal was to reach 10,000 tests by the end of March and we met that goal. But we clearly need to do more and increase that number.

"In terms of the overall preparations, nobody can be fully prepared, no country can be fully-prepared for a new disease.

"But in terms of the amount of PPE protective equipment we've got in store, it's hard distributing that to every single person on the front line and we've got a huge effort underway on that.

"In terms of the world-leading test, we developed one of the first here. The challenge is the massive expansion needed of testing."

#NickFerrari #Coronavirus #LBC

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