Hundreds more swabs to be processed daily and Jersey's R number to be released
Jersey's Chief Minister says 300 more tests from the island will be processed in the UK per day by the end of the week.
Senator John Le Fondre was asked in a States sitting how many tests are being carried out and what issues there are with the process.
He said that 60 tests are currently processed in Jersey each day, and that 175 are processed in London.
He added that he hopes to raise the total number of tests processed per day to 500 by the end of the week.
The Chief Minister, also said in the States that Jersey's R number will be released on Thursday 14 May.
Scientists use the R number to understand how infectious a virus is and how quickly it spreads.
What is the R number?
The R number is the average number of people an infected person can expect to pass the virus on to before any widespread immunity or attempts at immunisation are made.
For example, if one person develops an infection and transmits it to two other people, the number would be R2.
The higher the number, the faster it progresses.
If it is greater than one, the infection will "spread exponentially", but if it is lower than one, it will spread slowly and eventually die out, according to the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine (CEBM) at Oxford University.
Strict social distancing measures, a dramatic drop in use of public transport, and people leaving the house only for a set amount of hours per day are all cited as effective measures at slowing transmission.
As fewer people come into contact with each other, there are fewer chances for the virus to spread.