The Government has announced 300 million funding for local authorities to take a central role in the national test, track and isolate programme. ..... Pro-rata funding for Reading would be 870,000.

Health Service Journal reports today that the Department of Health and Social Care's PPE Portal is so far reaching only a tiny proportion of its intended users. ..... After starting development on March 27th the site went live in a pilot service to 1000 users in Devon and Cornwall on 27th April. There are now 1400 out of the intended 58,000 users able to make use of the site.

 CEO Steve McManus has explained that the Royal Berkshire Hospital has created separate areas for suspected coronavirus patients and all others ......

Reading university has lent 3 of its best PCR machines to expand Public Health England's live virus testing capacity. It has also supported the national effort in a number of another ways: .... 

The Financial Times has today published an article in which it gives the results of its analysis of deaths in care homes and states that nearly 11,000 more deaths have occurred in care homes than would have done in previous years. ..... While it is not clear that this can be taken as the best indication of the number of deaths in care homes, it is a component of the overall excess deaths which does add to the already 20,000 deaths in hospital attributed to Covid-19, showing the gravity of the present epidemic.