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Apparently it's capacity
From another guardian article:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/17/testing-for-coronavirus-what-being-done-in-uk
Why are people with symptoms not being tested? It appears to be a
capacity issue, although the Department of Health and Social Care
failed to respond to repeated requests for explanation. So far there
have been about 44,000 tests in England, which the government’s chief
scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, told the health select
committee put it in “the top three or four countries in terms of
testing”. PHE has a capacity of about 4,000 tests per day, he said,
although last week NHS England put out a press release saying it was
scaling up to 10,000 a day. Vallance said 4,000 a day “is clearly not
going to be enough going forward” and said there was “a very big
effort going on to try and ramp that up”.He said healthcare workers were among the “key workers” they wanted to
be able to test – but it is clear that will not happen very soon.
Asked if the UK should have mass testing on the scale of South Korea,
which has tested more than 250,000 people out of a population of 51
million, and is bringing infections down, Vallance said: “I think we
need a big increase in testing. That’s what I’m pushing for very hard.
Everyone is working hard to try and make that happen.”
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Again, the missed opportunities to take action earlier are astonishing. Why weren't they scaling capacity when it was clear what was going to happen in January? It sounds like there is still a lack of political will as Vallance is quoted as saying:
That’s what I’m pushing for very hard.
As in, he still hasnt been given what he has asked for.
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UK approach continues to be an omnishambles:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/17/there-is-a-policy-of-surrender-doctor-on-uks-covid-19-failures
I still have not seen any adequate explanation of why we can't scale testing. Other than there is no will to do so.