{"id":15170,"date":"2020-05-18T11:36:57","date_gmt":"2020-05-18T11:36:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/factcheckni.org\/?p=15170"},"modified":"2022-02-27T15:16:17","modified_gmt":"2022-02-27T15:16:17","slug":"was-northern-ireland-covid-19-testing-at-a-rate-10-times-scotlands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/factcheckni.org\/topics\/health\/was-northern-ireland-covid-19-testing-at-a-rate-10-times-scotlands\/","title":{"rendered":"Was Northern Ireland COVID-19 testing at a rate 10 times Scotland’s?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This claim was not accurate. Northern Ireland\u2019s test rate for the day of 8 May 2020 was about three-quarters (80%) that of Scotland.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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UPDATE: On 19 May 2020, the following claim was revised by Guido Fawkes. We have published an addendum to our article.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On 11 May 2020, the blog website Guido Fawkes published an article, \u201cHow the four nations compare on Covid\u201d<\/a>, in which it claimed: \u201cUsing data from the regional public health authorities published on May 9, it would seem that Northern Ireland is way ahead of the other regions, it was testing at 10 times the rate of Scotland, which is testing at the lowest rate.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Source: Guido Fawkes<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

FactCheckNI asked Guido Fawkes to share the data sources; it confirmed that its graph was derived \u201cfrom the respective published figures by the national health authorities for that date [9 May] found on their website\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are two ways to count tests. International comparisons (e.g. the non-profit FIND<\/a>) tend to use the number of tests conducted, rather than the number of people tested. (A person can be tested more than once, for example, to establish a valid result, or to regularly retest people working closely with COVID-19 patients.) We have calculated a \u201ctest rate\u201d from the number of tests divided by the figure for the most recent population estimates for each country. While figures for tests conducted (rather than people tested) are published in Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the UK as a whole, we cannot find specific figures for England.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The publication of daily figures by government agencies show data up to and including the previous day; there is a one-day lag. The following table of public data available on 9 May 2020 shows the figures for the number of tests completed on the single day of 8 May 2020, to compare with Guido Fawkes\u2019 analysis:<\/p>\n\n\n\n