Covid-19 testing in the UK was not a “shambles” in 2020

In a recent interview with The BMJ, Paul Nurse said that covid-19 PCR testing in the UK in 2020 was a shambles.1 I respond as someone who volunteered to help set up the Milton Keynes Lighthouse testing laboratory. I agree with Nurse that in 2020 the government should have used academic laboratories to ramp up covid PCR testing capacity