McDonald’s and other drive-through restaurant facilities are being encouraged to reopen after a government minister said they were “made for social distancing”. George Eustice, the environment minister, said that takeaway food businesses were never explicitly ordered to close because of the coronavirus outbreak, but chose to do so because of footfall, staff anxiety and the sense that it was not socially acceptable to remain open. He suggested at the daily Downing Street press conference on Friday that they could begin trading again, and said he was in talks with McDonald’s, which has reopened restaurants on a pilot basis in some areas, KFC and Costa. He said that Pret A Manger has already opened some branches. Eustice said: “When we originally did the lockdown we were quite explicit that it didn’t cover takeaway food. “Probably a McDonald’s drive-through is made for the social distancing situation that we are in, in that people do not leave their car, they place their order and somebody places a bag of food to them through a kiosk. “I think it is quite possible for these venues to reopen and reopen safely. We never mandated that they should close.” He said takeaway food companies could learn from supermarkets “as they consider tentatively reopening”. Eustice also revealed at the press conference that the government missed its 100,000 testing target for a sixth day in a row with 97,029 tests in the latest 24-hour period. It was also put to him that care home staff are still not getting the tests they need. He said that regional variances were inevitable with surplus tests in some areas, and if people could not get a test on the first day they want one, they should be able to get one “quickly”. He said: “The important thing is we set this target to get 100k tests and we have that capacity.” The prime minister’s pledge to reach 200,000 tests a day was important to show the ambition of expanding capacity, Eustice added.