Guidance

Coronavirus (COVID-19): testing data methodology

Information on the data sources and methodology used to provide the daily statistics on coronavirus testing.

• From: Department of Health and Social Care
• Published: 2 June 2020
• Last updated: 21 August 2020 — See all updates

This publication was withdrawn on 12 April 2022

For information, refer to the COVID dashboard.

Documents

COVID-19 testing data: methodology note

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Details

The Department of Health and Social Care publishes daily statistics on coronavirus testing.

These statistics cover:

• testing for coronavirus (COVID-19) – tests and positive cases
• capacity to process tests – which is published weekly

This document sets out information on the data sources and methodology used to generate each of these measures.

Published 2 June 2020
Last updated 21 August 2020 + show all updates

1. 21 August 2020

   Updated to reflect that the page 'Coronavirus cases in the UK: daily updated statistics' is no longer updated with daily statistics.

2. 12 August 2020

   Changes have been made to reflect a historic adjustment of 1,308,071 tests being removed from the 'tests made available' metric.

3. 29 July 2020

   Updated to include the latest methodology on how positive cases are counted in Wales and Northern Ireland.

4. 4 July 2020

   Updates have been made throughout the methodology note, including adding new sections to 'methodology' and 'positive cases'.

5. 2 June 2020

   First published.