Almost nine in 10 of all Covid-19 tests in England are now taking longer than 24 hours to produce results, as figures also revealed a 75% increase in positive weekly cases. The 18,371 people who tested positive for the virus between 3 and 9 September is the highest weekly number since the government’s troubled NHS test-and-trace system was launched at the end of May. The deepening problems of that programme were highlighted on Thursday in the latest progress report, which showed only 14% of all tests delivered a result in under 24 hours in the week to 9 September, down from 32% a week earlier. Just 1.9% of people in England who used a home test kit for Covid-19 received their results within 24 hours in the week to 9 September – the lowest percentage since test and trace was launched. The government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) has stressed the importance of delivering rapid test results, ideally within 24 hours, to help limit the spread of coronavirus and quicken the process of tracing people’s close contacts. However, the latest figures show that it now takes four days on average to receive a test result from a Satellite Test Centre – private labs helping to increase testing capacity for hospitals and care homes – and home tests take three and a half days on average to produce a result, up from 35 hours. The department of health sought to explain the time taken for Satellite tests by saying they are sometimes conducted over multiple days at care homes with collection scheduled for a few days later. Of people who were tested for Covid-19 in England in the week ending 9 September at a regional site, local site or mobile testing unit – an “in-person” test – 33.3% received their result within 24 hours. This was down from 66.5% in the previous week. The prime minister had pledged that, by the end of June, the vast majority of in-person test results would be back within 24 hours. Boris Johnson told the House of Commons on 3 June he would get “all tests turned around within 24 hours by the end of June, except for difficulties with postal tests or insuperable problems like that”. The latest figures were seized on by the Labour party, which said the government had failed to deliver effective testing and tracing. The shadow health secretary, Jon Ashworth, said in the Commons: “When testing breaks down case-finding breaks down, isolation breaks down and we lose control of this virus. The British people made great sacrifices, they missed family celebrations, they couldn’t say their final goodbyes to loved ones at funerals but the British people honoured their side of the bargain. “In return, the government was supposed to deliver effective testing and tracing. The government failed and we have vast swathes of the country under restrictions. The statistical report released by the Department of Health and Social Care on Thursday stated that a total of 571,400 people were tested for Covid-19 in the week to 9 September. This included a 30% increase in the number of people tested under pillar 2 – swab testing for the wider population – and a 20% increase in pillar 1 – testing in hospitals and outbreak locations. The figure also indicate that the situation has also barely improved since the Guardian reported last month that outsourcing companies leading the test-and-trace system had failed to reach nearly half of potentially exposed people in areas with the highest Covid infection rates in England. Just 51% of “non-complex close contacts” - potentially exposed people falling outside of the remit of local authority health officials – were being identified in Oldham, an area with an infection rate of 106.5 per 100,000 people). Elsewhere in the same category of potentially exposed case, just 56% were being reached in Bolton (infection rate 175.5) along with 49% in Blackburn with Darwen (infection rate 107.4). The government has announced the setting up of two private sector “lighthouse labs” in the Berkshire town of Bracknell and the current Covid-19 hotspot of Newcastle. A further 20 new testing sites are opening this week, according to the DHSC. The facility in Newcastle will be able to deliver 80,000 tests a day by the end of March 2021 while Bracknell is expected to deliver 40,000 tests a day by February. Dido Harding, the Tory peer at the head of England’s widely criticised test-and-trace system, used the announcement of the labs to urge only those with symptoms to book tests. “We need everyone to help make sure that tests are there for people with symptoms who need them” she said.