On Friday, there was good news and bad news in the numbers: The government announced it had exceeded its testing target, carrying out 122,347 tests on the last day of the month. But with 739 more people dying from the virus that same day, Britain was also poised to soon overtake Italy in a few days as the hardest hit country in Europe.

The fixation on numbers is understandable but misplaced. Experts said, just because Britain can carry out more than 100,000 tests a day does not mean it has built an effective testing and contact tracing program, which experts say is needed to avert another spike in infections if the government eases the lockdown.